Q. Do the Vaishnava and Shiva followers and the worshippers of all the different deities worship in the same way? A. It is almost the same. There may be little differences; not much. Just some differences which will perhaps distinguish one from the other. But at the same time mostly this is the form.

Q. Have they all the same sacred words and breathing exercises? A. No, perhaps the words of the Vedanta, followers of Vishnu differ from the words the followers of Shiva use. Of course, the meaning is the same. And breathing exercises do not differ much, for the reason that the yoga is one yoga for all the Hindus. There are four different yogas, but one system.

Q. Who gives them the words and breathing exercises? Priests, are they murshids? A. First of all, a brahman is a priest by birth; a brahman is a born priest. Therefore the first lesson he receives is in his own family, of the sacred word. But when he takes an esoteric path, at that time he needs the guidance of a murshid. What the brahman calls a guru. And it may be the same word perhaps which he has learned from his parents. Still when that word is given by the guru, that has a different value again. Perhaps he has repeated that word in his life, but when it is given by the guru the value of the word is different.

Q. And for the non-brahman? A. The manner of their worship is the same. But the worship of the other persons is done by the mediumship of a brahman, because only a brahman was entitled to perform the service. Brahmans were the community of priests. And for kshatryas, and vaishyas, and suddras, which are three different casts of the Hindus, the brahmans had to perform services. The others had no power to perform the service anywhere.

Hindus are living all over India. They have to take a brahman as a medium; through a brahman they are entitled to have a service. A brahman is the one who will perform the service, and they will have to stand there and attend the service.

Q. Do they know the meaning of all the different actions they perform? A. Not everybody. An advanced brahman knows it.

Q. Has it not changed the customs of the other classes? A. Yes, they do prostrate. But going near the deity, and putting the red powder and the ointment on, that they do not do. Sometimes they bring for the brahman the red powder and the oil, and leave it there. But that is the brahman's work to do. They have many different marks of the cast. But the castmark denotes the third eye, the inner sense.

Q. The Catholic Church ..? A. One thing is very admirable in the Hindu religion. It is so very vast in its ways of worship, and in its doctrines and ideal and forms and philosophy, that it gives a scope for a person of every grade of evolution. He has an answer in the religion of the Hindus, whatever grade of evolution he has reached. For every person Hinduism will give an answer, because it is very vast. If a person will try in the philosophical field, he will find an answer; so in worship, in symbology. Therefore it is something which answers the demand of every individual's life. If one takes the whole religion of the Hindus, from the beginning to the end, it is so vast and deep, and yet so simple, that it answers the need of every person. Hinduism is not one religion: Hinduism is many religions itself.

Q. Is that the reason that the Jains and Sikhs have grown so? A. The religion of the Jains is Buddhistic, and that of the Sikhs is a modern reform of Hinduism.

Q. -----? A. It is the spiritual effect of the word. At the same time when the guru gave it, at that time the guru has charged this word with his own spiritual power. That is the same thing in Sufism.

Q. What is the meaning in the worship of the brahmans of putting rice at the feet of the deity? A. That all the love and light that they gain from the deity they will spread in the world, as the seeds thrown in the furrow. The red powder symbolizes eternal life.