Guest guest Posted July 18, 2001 Report Share Posted July 18, 2001 All religions including Hinduism emphasizes that as humans, we cannot comprehend the image of God! But human mind does have the capacity to build a mental image of God and create that image in physical form. The Tamil expression, `muppaththu mukkodi devas' represents millions of such representations of the mental image of Nirguna Brahman. In mathematics also, the non-comprehensible infinity has been conceptualized in infinite ways! It is a fundamental fact, that which can't be comprehended are represented by a symbol. In Hinduism, the symbol of OM represents the Brahman. The religious symbolism is further expanded in other fields: A country is symbolized by a flag, love for a country is expressed by the national anthem etc. The physical images of Parvathi, Saraswati, Lakshimi, Ganesa, Karthikeya, Shiva, Vishnu and others help us focus and concentrate our mind on the Nirguna Brahman during meditation or prayer. Worships and Prayers are impossible without a ` mental image' of the noncomprehensible Brahman. The question: whether a physical image (idol) is necessary for prayer can never be resolved because the very question goes beyond human perception. Any form of worship implies some mental comprehension of God. Such comprehension could come either from physical image of God or other symbolic expressions of God such as the Bible (Cross) or Qu'an or other such symbols. Muslims believe (rightly) that God has written Qur'an and for them Qur'an implicitly represents the God. Similarly the Christians believe that the words of the Bible represents the expressions of God. This may explain why the Hindu implicitly worships the God while chanting the Vedas. The reading of Qur'an or Bible are also forms of mental worship of God using the physical means. warmest regards, Ram Chandran Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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