Nididhyasana

It seems that most Srivaishnava sites one visits are principally concerned with alankaram (decoration) of the deities and utsavas (festivals). While beautiful, elevating and enjoyable it distracts from another activity — alankaram of the atma or self.

Vedanta proposes 3 tools for self-development

1. sravana (listening to the teachings),

manana — (reflecting upon the teachings) and

nididhyasana (application of the teachings through contemplation and assimilation).

The deity enshrined in the temple is called a bimba — ’reflection’ of the antaryamin — the indweller in one’s own heart. The decoration of the icon in the temple should coincide with self-development — atma-alankaram.

Bathing and decorating the icon is a futile exercise in self-delusion if it is not concurrently accompanied by the bathing and decorating of the jivatman!

In the 12th Chapter of the Gita Krishna delivers the teaching on Amrita-dharma (The Dharma of immortality) and declares the 32 qualities of the "beloved devotee".  Let us just review the first of these qualities 12:13--

                                adveṣṭā sarva bhūtānāṃ maitraḥ karuṇa eva ca |
                                nir-mamo nir-ahaṅkāraḥ sama duḥkha sukha kṣamī ||

Not prejudiced towards any living being,  friendly and compassionate to all,   free from the notions of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, and regarding all pain and pleasure with equanimity, and forbearing;

• The first preparatory practice is to divest oneself of  all feelings of antipathy and prejudice towards all living beings. Please notice that He says "all beings" both sentient and insentient. All hatred, animosity and negativity must be rejected. One has to dispense with all prejudices based on class, caste, creed, gender, sexual orientation, qualification etc.

• The second step is to open up a space for everyone to enter — friendliness — not rejecting anyone, open and inviting to all, treating all alike — as sparks of the divine. This is a passive state of simple allowing others into one’s own space and abandoning feelings of separation and difference. Sama-drsthi — seeing all alike.
• The 3rd stage is more difficult — it requires us to develop active compassion. There are 2 types of compassion — sympathy, which is feeling sorry for the suffering of others and empathy, which is feeling the pain of others and then begetting a sincere desire to alleviate the pain and suffering of other sentient beings. Every moment of our lives we should be looking for opportunities to decrease the suffering that is characteristic of samsara.
• The 4th stage of our practice requires an even greater effort — to rid ourselves of all feelings of possessiveness and delusive ideas of who we are! These two go together — we assume identities and then accumulate status symbols to support those delusive ideas, all of which are associated with and pertain to the conditioned physical body.
• The next stage consists of 3 qualities — remaining balanced in pleasure and pain — being unpeturbed  by either of these two experiences — recognizing all pain and joy to be the result of previous karma. Not due to either the pleasure or the wrath of any deity but resulting from our own actions. And integral to this balancing act is the quality of "forbearance" or forgiveness, not bearing a grudge against those who cause us pain but recognizing them as merely agents of our own karma.