Idolatry and Dogmatism: The Veils of Maya

[Guest guest]

" Idolatry and Dogmatism: The Veils of Maya

 

The greatest charge that predominant Western religions of

Christianity, Islam and Judaism have made against other religions,

particularly Hinduism, is that of idolatry - that they worship a God

other than the One God and are therefore committing a great sin or

error. The greatest charge that people make against these religions

in turn is that of dogmatism - that self-created religious

authorities are trying to impose an arbitrary set of beliefs upon

all people, which favors one group over another and leads to

oppression and exploitation.

 

There is no doubt that religion should question our attachment to

the outer world and the missing of our true connection with the

Divine. Yet when religion mistakes that inner reality for a

particular code of belief, it becomes guilty of the same outwardness

it is criticizing. It becomes dogmatic, which is another form of

idolatry, or trying to limit truth to a particular fixed form.

 

To insist that God should be given only one name or worshipped in

only one way indicates ignorance of the unlimited nature of Truth.

True religion shows us the limitations of our outward seeking but

without imposing an outer standard on our inner search. The inner

search for the infinite and eternal cannot be limited by any social,

emotional or intellectual formulation.

 

There can be no outer group which owns or dispenses the inner Truth

as if it were a material or intellectual commodity. Such so-called

religion is not a seeking of the Universal and Eternal, but the

assertion of a personal point of view which divides humanity into

hostile camps.

 

Idolatry charges people with regarding as Divine some material thing

like a stone, a piece of wood, or a picture. Yet even the so-called

primitive savage knows that his idol is not the deity he worships

but merely a means of communication with it. Idolatry properly

understood consists of regarding something other than the Divine as

reality - valuing money, sex, power, or any outer object over the

Spiritual Being or Pure Consciousness underlying the universe. In

Hinduism this belief in the reality of something other than God or

the Self, is called ignorance or illusion (avidya or Maya).

 

Sanatana Dharma teaches that we should regard the Divine as the

reality and our true Self. We should not grant reality to anything

apart from Consciousness. "

 

http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/hinduism/idolatary_dogmatism/

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