Views about David's Questions

[Guest guest]

Hello David -

 

As a student of Hindu Philosophy and from whatever I

have read here are my views about your questions -

 

1. Idol worship is supported by Hinduism since ancient

times. You can refer to various traditional scriptures

like Vedas & Puranas. Most famoues example can be of

Bhagwan Shiva. Bhagwan Shiva is worshipped in a form

of Linga which is an idol.

 

As Swamiji explained - normal person cannot relate his

mind to the infinite wihout any idol so he takes help

of an idol which he likes and tries to concentrate on

it. When he advances in his spiritual progress then

automatically he can fix his mind on any concept or on

any idea relating to supreme authority i.e. god. Then

gradually idol is not needed. So it may be one of the

primary reason behind idol worshipping. So idol maybe

of any god, all hindus are praying to the same one

omnipotent spirit, God.

 

2. Maya - You can refer BhagwadGita for more on this.

Maya is simply illusion or dream. In broader sense, we

cannot see the real nature of this world. We cannot

see that everything we see and cant see is the

manifestation of God alone as we are bound by his

cosmic illusionary power called Maya. As Maya is God's

power he is not in the scope of it. He is above and

beyond everything. When we get realization, then we

can truly understand what is real otherwise everything

is Maya.

 

Dont misunderstand that without self-realization we

can say it is illusion. When I am suffering in pain I

cant say this is illusion because I havent yet

understood by experience or by meditation the real

nature of this world. For common man this is reality

but for the Yogi - this is like dream. So thats why

for common person everything exists i.e. this world,

laws, morality Etc, only after enlightment he can

truly understand what Maya is.

 

3. According to Hindus - there is only GOD and nothing

else. Everything is created by God. Good, Bad and

everything else. Advaita Vedanta which is the

culmination of all Hindu Philosophy has explained this

Evil problem in a great manner. Exactly your same

question is discussed in many famous Advaita Vedanta

books.

 

Advaita explains that what we see is good or bad -

that is due to our inability or due to lack of

knowledge. By real knowledge we can see everything is

the same and that is Brahman or Atman. Everything is

its manifestation.

 

So good or evil is nothing but forms created or taken

by God, we can say for the sake of argument. Now why

God has created Evil ? All saints including Bhagwan

Sri Ramakrishna say that, that is the will of God. He

created evil because without evil you will not

understand good. Without night there will be no value

of dawn or day. So this world is like this because

simply god wishes like this.

 

Please excuse me if I am wrong at any point. I just

tried to express my views about your questions. Hope

this helps a bit ...

 

Jai Sri Ramakrishna.

 

Regards.

 

SrkChild.

 

 

 

Finance - Get real-time stock quotes

http://finance.