Idol Worship

[Guest guest]

The statue or photo is the inert object. The form carved in a stone

or painted on a paper is also an imaginary form and not even a

direct photo. The statues and photos are only models representing

the concept, which is knowledge. The form of statues and photos is

mainly human form, which represents the concept that the Lord always

comes to this world in human form as said in Gita (Manusheem Tanu

Masritam). Please remember that Gita did not tell that the Lord

would come in any other form. The forms of fish, tortoise etc., were

only temporarily to kill the demons and nobody worshipped such forms

during their time. But Rama, Krishna etc were the human forms

worshipped by several devotees like Hanuman and Gopikas. The Lord

will come in every human generation; otherwise, He becomes partial

to a particular generation. If necessary the Lord can come whenever

there is necessity as said in Gita (Yedaa yedaahi).

 

Once this concept is realized, there is no need of temple and statue

for you. You should go from school to college and then to

university. This does not mean that when you leave the school, the

school should be destroyed. The school must exist for the future

batches. Therefore for you, the statue and the photo are not

necessary and this does not mean that the statues, photos and

temples should be broken. They should be protected and must be

respected as the models of divine knowledge for the future ignorant

devotees. Some devotees cannot accept the human form, which is

before their eyes as said in Veda (Pratyaksha dvishah).

 

For such devotees the statues and photos are necessary for

meditation since they are at the school level. The statues and

photos are useful for the meditation of such limited minds as said

in Sastra (Pratima svalpa buddhinam). Veda says that the Lord does

not exist in the inert objects (Natasya pratima, Nedamtat), but says

that the inert objects can stand as models representing the Lord

(Adityam brahmeti). Therefore seeing and meditation upon the statues

and photos are correct in the case of the ignorant devotees. But the

other rituals like offering food, burning camphor, fume sticks, oil

lamps and breaking coconuts, offering flowers etc. are not mentioned

in Vedas and there are unnecessary and are causing the air pollution

harming the humanity. All these unnecessary rituals should be

avoided.

 

Offering food should also be done to the human form of the Lord only

but not to the inert statues. Ijya or Yajna is cooking and offering

of the food. Gita says that such Ijya should not be done to the

inert objects. In the name of the statues, people are stealing the

food and money. The statue and photo is not taking the food or

Gurudakshina. The people behind the statue are taking those things

and most of them are either cheating or wasting the money with

ignorance. Whatever the Gurudakshina is given should go only to the

priest and not the managing devotees. The business of the merchants

by selling such materials in the temples should be stopped, because

such materials are not even heard in Veda. Of course, the priest

should be a Satguru and preach the divine knowledge to the devotees

and the devotees should give Gurudakshina to such Satguru only.

Thus, the temple should become a center of learning selfless

devotion and divine knowledge and the priest must do only `Jnana

Yajna' in the temple and not the `dravya yajna' as said in the Gita

(Sreyaan dravyamayat).

 

Gita condemned such Ijya before inert objects because such Ijya is

only cheating and business. Such a devotee will be born as inert

object (Bhutejya yanti). This business is connected to removal of

the fruits of sins and getting the fruits of good deeds, which are

not done. All this is false, because the theory of `karma' says

that one has to suffer for all his bad deeds and can never get the

result of any good deed without doing it (Avasyamanubhoktavyam…

kalpakotisatairapi). The spiritual path should be preached in the

temple, which must be `nishkama karma yoga' i.e., sacrifice of work

and sacrifice of fruit (money) of the work to the Lord without

aspiring any fruit in return. Remember, that only the Ijya is

condemned and not the temples or statues, which are the models of

the divine knowledge.

 

at the lotus feet of shri datta swami

surya

www.universal-spirituality.org

[Guest guest]

dear friend,

 

u did write a long article but forgot to mention "Nrisingh" avtaar of

ord vishnu, which was worshipped by bhakt prahlaad, narad and others,

u can find his prayer (stuti) in purans.

 

rise above ur confusion, god is in and beyond every thing, its u or

ur quality if u can see or recognise its presence in something or not.

 

for prahlaad god came through a piller of stone, remember this.

in bhakti or devotion there is no formal gradation or defined layer

like u mentioned.

 

u can transform urself in a moment if god loves u or u can take ur

whole life to realize a simple thing. so many problems arise when u r

fomally educated in one cult or in one school of sprituality and

didn't do sadhana. performance in formal education and knowledge that

u gain in one cult inspires u to teach and spread ur cult or

religion, first experience u and relationship with god and then go

for understanding other's relationship with their god in their way.

 

these days when terror of guruism is spread all over, god usually

comes in second place, ones u trapped in such cults, it's very

difficult to have strength to get over, as soon , u will be taught

that some guru is avtaar of great god and u have to do all ur best to

please him, unless he pleases with u, u can't go ahead and then u

begin to be used for ambitions of ur guru, like to spread count and

area of the guru or to contribute money for the maintenance of his 5

star hotels like ashram, it goes upto sexual pleasure, sometimes, it

comes with description of supernatural power of kundalini.

 

pls. discover ur relation with the almighty who is spread everywhere,

it's a direct relationship. if god thinks u need a guru, ur true guru

will be directed to u. with guru's love ur chitshuddhi may happen

instantly, remember, true guru offers it's best and doesnt want

anything back, he even doesnt confine u to his feet, he can advance u

to other guru if required. he w'd please to see ur closeness to god

or he can handle u some work that can rsult in feel of closeness with

god.

 

 

regards.

 

 

 

 

 

, "surya" <dattapr2000

wrote:

>

> The statue or photo is the inert object. The form carved in a stone

> or painted on a paper is also an imaginary form and not even a

> direct photo. The statues and photos are only models representing

> the concept, which is knowledge. The form of statues and photos is

> mainly human form, which represents the concept that the Lord

always

> comes to this world in human form as said in Gita (Manusheem Tanu

> Masritam). Please remember that Gita did not tell that the Lord

> would come in any other form. The forms of fish, tortoise etc.,

were

>

[Guest guest]

i appreciated both of these posts regarding God Diety and Guru. having had my share of cult life and spiritual journeys trappings etc...its lovely to read these.

 

 

 

akschharsmn <akschharsmn (AT) (DOT) co.in> wrote: dear friend,

 

u did write a long article but forgot to mention "Nrisingh" avtaar of

ord vishnu, which was worshipped by bhakt prahlaad, narad and others,

u can find his prayer (stuti) in purans.

 

rise above ur confusion, god is in and beyond every thing, its u or

ur quality if u can see or recognise its presence in something or not.

[Guest guest]

dear friend

 

The top most devotees who also turned out top most jnanis by

achieving the top most laurels by pleasing the Lord are ....

 

Hanuman, a topmost devotee identified Lord Rama and served Him and

always said `I am servant to Lord Rama'. He even performed many

miracles also and still he has given credit of them to Rama only.

(Dasoham kosalendrasya.....) For such worship, Lord has given future

creator post to Hanuman.

 

Gopikas identified and worshipped Lord Krishna, the then human

incarnation only and got the highest fruit of top most Goloka. Swami

Vivekananda participated in the mission of propagation of divine

knowledge on the order of the then human incarnation Rama Krishna

Paramahamsa.

 

Likewise the disciples of Adi Sankara worshipped Him as lord and

latter on participated in the propagation of divine knowledge.

Meerabai also propagated Krishna Bhakti by composing hymns and

propagated them.

 

St. Peter, St. John, St. Luke... identified Lord Jesus by His divine

knowledge and participated in the propagation of divine knowledge.

 

In all these the disciples identified the Lord in the human form

during their time and participated in His mission as servants. So,

first one should identify the Satguru and then learn divine

knowledge from Him. These disciples worshipped their Satguru. At His

order, they participated in the propagation of divine knowledge as

Service to Lord. Service only proves our real devotion, which

consists of Karma phala tyaga (sacrifice of money) & karma sanyasa

(physically participating in His mission).

 

Lord in human form preaches the true knowledge. But miracles are

required to convert atheists into theists. Sometimes people approach

gurus, who show powers thinking to exploit those powers for their

selfish end. They want to use that power to cure some big diseases

of family members, to get solutions of their long-standing family

problems etc. Such people are not bothered of Lord but concentrate

on His power. They are in hurry to get their problems solved. They

will finally end up in such people, who in turn loot them.

 

When one is desirous of lord only without selfish intention, He will

definitely find Him (human form) only. Our pious desire attracts Him

and our selfish bad odour repels Him Going to Satguru (Lord in human

form) is not for erecting empires and dynasties on earth, in which

case we are not eligible to go near to Him. Any normal human being

expects a Satguru and a Satguru expects a Sathsishya (real devotee),

who wants to serve Him without any desire.

 

Mostly people love Lord for their desires to be fulfilled. If

something goes wrong or if things are out of control then we rush to

lord and start prayers etc. This devotion is like a prostitute

loving her customer. If one really loves Lord without any desire,

then only Lord will be pleased. When a beggar approaches us, we

generally offer him whatever is least useful to us. But, when a

relative comes to our house, we provide him with good food,

facilities and even ask him to stay for some more time. Why is the

difference in our approach? Beggar comes to us for what we give. He

is not having any love on us. Whereas a relative has not come for

our food and facilities, he has come to see us. This shows the love.

So, our approach to Lord should be with love and affection as

relative but not like beggar, who approaches us only for satisfying

the desires. We should not worship lord only to satisfy our desire.

Prayers by words, meditation by mind and intelligence in spiritual

discussions form a preliminary level of worship. The devotee should

search for a Satguru or Lord in human form (like Jesus, Krishna and

Prophet Mohammed) to learn the divine knowledge. After gaining the

divine knowledge from the Lord in human form, at His directive only

he should participate in His service in the mission.

 

His mission is to uplift the human beings by preaching the divine

knowledge. Service consists of donating money and physically

participating in His mission of divine knowledge propagation. Such

real service is the only proof of our real love towards Lord. We are

serving our family by spending hard earned money for them and also

serving physically. Where as when we come to Lord, we express our

love by prayers, meditation and spiritual discussions only, which

are given freely by Lord to everybody.

 

Hence God is not even comparable to family members but in prayers we

project Him on top.

 

posted by: His servant

at the lotus feet of shri datta swami

www.universal-spirituality.org

 

 

 

"akschharsmn" <akschharsmn wrote:

> dear friend,

> u did write a long article but forgot to mention "Nrisingh" avtaar

of > ord vishnu, which was worshipped by bhakt prahlaad, narad and

others, u can find his prayer (stuti) in purans.

> rise above ur confusion, god is in and beyond every thing, its u

or ur quality if u can see or recognise its presence in something

or not. for prahlaad god came through a piller of stone, remember

this. in bhakti or devotion there is no formal gradation or defined

layer like u mentioned.

>

> these days when terror of guruism is spread all over, god usually

> comes in second place, ones u trapped in such cults, it's very

> difficult to have strength to get over, as soon , u will be taught

> that some guru is avtaar of great god and u have to do all ur best

to please him, unless he pleases with u, u can't go ahead and then

u begin to be used for ambitions of ur guru, like to spread count

and area of the guru or to contribute money for the maintenance of

his 5 star hotels like ashram, it goes upto sexual pleasure,

sometimes, it comes with description of supernatural power of

kundalini.

>

> pls. discover ur relation with the almighty who is spread

everywhere, it's a direct relationship. if god thinks u need a

guru, ur true guru will be directed to u. with guru's love ur

chitshuddhi may happen instantly, remember, true guru offers it's

best and doesnt want anything back, he even doesnt confine u to his

feet, he can advance u to other guru if required. he w'd please to

see ur closeness to god or he can handle u some work that can rsult

in feel of closeness with god.

>

> regards.