Idol Worship Of Symbolism

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force to which the image serves as a temporary residence. Presuming we are

worshipping Ganesa here, the invocations will be: Ganesa-sanaya-namah,

Ganesa-murthaye namah, Ganessaya namah. These steps in the invocation will

make clear the position in idol worship. Saivism has idols in its worship but

it does not do idol worship. The worshipper never says that he is

worshipping the image or the idol. Even while offering flowers to the image

before him, or to the handful of sand, etc. He is simply saying that he is

worshipping Ganesa or Siva. But the worshipper is not conscious of the image

or the idol; He says and feels that he is worshipping the Supreme being, as

Ganesa or Siva, not as an idol. Siva worship reaches beyond and goes

further to the Supreme idea that is sought to be invoked in the idol. The

mind of man which functions only through the senses and the other internal

organs cannot at all reach Suddha-Siva, the nirguna (without attributes, who is

immutable and transcendental). Hence to satisfy these organs and to give them

some concrete object on which to focus the senses and the organs to begin with,

the form of Siva the Saguna (with attributes) was invented by our forefathers.

This is installed in different forms in the temple so that the limited mind of

man may comprehend the Unlimited Being in the symbol. The image or the

Siva-linga is only a symbol. It is not God or Siva. It is a symbol intended

to point to the Being beyond. All thought goes to that Being through the

symbol. When many concentrate their thoughts on the image in the temple the

concentrated thought-effect of large congregations of devotees

endows it with a great potency for grace and succour. It gets hallowed as the

abode of Divinity and, as generations roll by, this potency for aid and succour

is indeed felt by succeeding generations of worshippers.

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