Puja is the ordinary machinery of Hindu practice, performed at home shrines far more often than in temples: the deity is treated as an honored guest — awakened, bathed, dressed, fed, shown light, and put to rest. That hospitality frame is the theology. The offering returns to the worshipper as prasada, food that the deity has tasted, which is why the exchange is not a transaction but a shared meal. What is offered can be elaborate or a flower and water; the Gita explicitly says the latter is enough.