idol worship more s
1 A true Support for The Spiritual Neophyte is right guidance from the master who lives divinity in think talk walk, which provides him a glimpse of the absolute beyond the name form attributes.
once this experience is gained all idol worship becomes an expression of his great great great devotion to his ista, the absolute coming live in the name form and infinite attributes of ista,
idol is a consequent result of the realization of the formless absolute
this may kindly be noted
without gaining he glimpse of absolute the idol wordhip ends in seeking to quench thirst in mirage
For prana pratishta, and avaahanam to the god in the idol , the basis is the experience of pure consciousness, if not it remains a surface ritual
1.1 with the experience of the basic , para of supreme, gods of one's choice will become lively and are ready to come before the devotee at his beck and call, and shower all the blessings and their powers and the devotee himself merges and he becomes the god himself, like chaithanya prabhu became lord kishan himself
1.2 other common experience is ---at the time of pooja/ harathi with manthrocharana and bells ringing, a devotee who has a purity level becomes charged with god
in kannada it is called, devatha maiyolage baruthade, and devotee starts talking some strange words/ even foretell future , body loosing the usual balance, shaking or vibrating etc
my grandma , and one of my aunt used to get that experience, ie super consciousness taking over
but why others did not get
since they have not got that level of purity where devathas become alive
1.3 the whole idea of any path is to awaken all the inner potentialities and live a mahimaanvitha life
manthras opening the doors of gods and gods becoming live bestowing all the boons and mahimas
and all possibilities open up with the experience of para , if not they remain only as words and images
1.4 For a beginner, experience of absolute nirakar nirgun is an absolute necessity. the most needed spark to light up the lamp of the self and illumine the path for further journey
all spiritual journey starts with this one essential, to enable the seeker to go on the right track
hence first , neti neti , shankara reaching that state of shivoham, shivakevaloham, nothing but chidananda roopaha , leaving behind all that limits the mind with any thought
once that goal is gained, the life is supercharged with divinity
and the vision sees all pervading absolute in every manifestation,
every thing becomes godly, rich, full, sacred
and the heart overflows with bhakthi and all devi devathas come to shake hand with him
the idol then becomes the lord himself in what ever idol worshipped
and in that state , he sang soundarya lahari, shiananda lahari glorifying every aspect of shivas nama roopa mahima
prior to the experience of the transcendental lord he was not satisfied with any thing
only after that experience , every thing become iti iti
hence for a beginner, the upanayana sanskar , first foremost to provide the experience of the pure nirakar nirgun self.
1.5 i am not against the idolatry
but cautioning on the significance, priority aspect ,
thyagaraja was asking rama
''tera teeyaga raadaa ''
ie rama why to hide your real transcendental nature behind your nama roopa
also prurandara was asking rama
neeny yako ninna hangu yaako
ie what for are you and your glory , is not your name alone sufficient?
the proof of pudding is in the eating
rk also was asked by his guru tota puri to break the idol
and he did, and he realized , since by this at that moment, he overcame the obstructing nama roopa mahima of the idol
1.6 Hence the need of a guru parampara , and the need of true master .
without it , many seekers remain only on putting efforts but will be deprived of the great mahimas of gods
for activating the mahimas in the personality, mere reciting the manthras is not sufficient
but the experience of the absolute is a must
since many are not aware of this fundamental of spirituality, and not getting guided by true masters, the humanity continues in ignorance, and hence in suffering unending , despite putting all efforts in all the festivals poojas rituals
there is a gulf of difference between a person worshiping a god as a routine and a person who experienced the absolute worshiping a god
that is why many devotees remain unfulfilled in life time
1,.7 What ever one does or does not do, finally the question remains
'' whether he got that most vital spiritual experience, atmanubhoothi, self realization, realization of the absolute para brahman, beyond the mental range , beyond icons, beyond words,
if one gets it thru idol wordhip, why not , yes it is done
but the bitter truth remains, despite all worships to all gods by all men all over the world, heaven really has not dawned on life in their life
but those who did gain that experience are enjoying the life in bliss, seeing really live gods in every particle, article, dust , garbage,
infact in every thing ranging from
anor aniyan mahatho mahiyan
and this experience is real, not a assumption or hope or unattainable ideal, but god living live in them in their presence, playing with them talking to them, lending a helping hand like in the life of sakkubai in grinding the dana floor
it was possible, since the base was the experience of the ultimate pure consciousness, nothing less
2 we must know when exactly an individual in his life becomes an ardent intense seeker, an earnestly inquisitive Spiritual Neophyte
and how is fire, the intense thirst for understanding enigmas of life kindles, grows, and makes him to move forward
also
how, why. when that fire becomes dim and gets put off on the way, without reaching the goal of life,
life just spending and ending in an ignorant state
3 one can be the seeker at any age till the last moment, yet wanting to know god even on death bed .
but our own experience indicates that
human beings truly become most interested in knowing life just after passing the early childhood , right at that start of adolescence, this is the stage when his desire is strongest to know the unknown
4 since, the early childhood is spent in learning the very basics, of crawling, standing, sitting, walking, learning movements of limbs, talking, cognizing, memory, seeing things around , talking, hearing, identifying, responding, reaching, manipulating
after he knew and learnt these basics, faces some puzzles which are outside his grasp
he now starts to search answers for this
5 in the childhood, he is given dolls, toys,models, pictures, idols, icons to enable him to learn , play and get to know just an idea of world and life,
once he learns, he finds not much interesting, and now gets ready to know the actual, real world,
since in every child there is a dhruva, there is a prahlad, there is a budha, there is a rk, there is vivekananda wanting very moch to know reality , to know more and more the inside story , not happy, not content with toys for long
6 here is the critical stage where human life takes a turn or does not take a turn,
6.1 intelligent enlightened parents send him under the guidance of a true master, for initiation to give him the first glimpse of the absolute thru upanayana sanskar, the true spiritual support to the spiritual neophite, enabling him to graduate from the world of images, illusions, to the reality within
he proceeds quickly, reaches higher consciousness quickly , attains the brahman consciousness , becomes eligible for successful adult life , in both spiritual and material worlds with the best wisdom, ultimate discretion, with glorious achievements, all along, with supreme power and mastery in every field , as a sarvagna, a muktha , in ananda, in the state of yogastha
6.2 if not, he misses the chance, entangled himself in the life ,assuming that toys, idols , icons, images as real, and hoping life long that some day the toys become real, which never can become, e does every thing , but in futility , and thus ends life in futility
this need not be elaborated, since we see the way the present world , its way of working, on news and tv, a continuous serial episodes of crime suffering, cheating, disease, accidents, exploitation, revolutions, wars, greed, hatred, lust and so on, since life is lived in false knowledge, mithya dominating over sathya, and preya overtaking shreya
7 the kid plays with the toys, dolls, and he plays long enough in different ways, and derives the maximum fun
and then what he does?
he simply starts breaking them, breaking into pieces,
in curiosity, in boredom, in disgust ,
breaking them open, trying to see what is inside it ,
what the stuff it is made of,
and having found nothing interesting, nor worthwhile in it
he simply throws them out, throws them away not to look at them once again
that means he has now graduated that stage of playing with toys and dolls , he has now become adolescent, the spiritual neophyte, a young prahlad, wanting to know that by which every thing becomes known
he has become the crown prince aspiring to rule the universe ,
to make it to run his errands at his beck and call
8 alas, at this time, instead of right guidance, the boy receives all suppression, in the name of discipline, reverence, faith, sin, belief, hope, and countless forms of impositions and conditioning leading him to remain only a pigmy, unfulfilled, his greatest potentialities becoming undiscovered unactualized in daily life,
The man remains doing only doing and following rituals injunctions and instructions in the name of religion blindly , moreover glorifying and teaching these to others all, ending as blind leading the blind
9 now comes the logical question on the origin of idol, devatha murthi, why how what when where of the murthi , and murthi pooja ?
9.1 parabrahm, the absolute, niraakaar, nirgun , unmaifest pure consciousness is the underlying basis, it is like the most elementary, fundamental raw material with which the entire sagun, saakaar, manifest levels of consciousness , the jada chethan to jeeva chaithanya are created with all variety and novelty, in various stratums of existence, the 14 lokas, from the subtlest to grossest , with different levels of beings like deva, gandharva, kinnera, kimpurusha,
their existence is perceivable by the human if his level of purity is raised
more the purity, the greater is the manifestation of devi devathas
rishis and saints thru their tapasya did raise their purity levels and experienced
the access to these stratums of existence, rather entered the relevant lokas and found certain truths
9.2 these truths they wanted to express with the best of their abilities thru different mediums of communication , scriptures, words, songs, literature, poetry, epics, romanticism, word pictures,
and with the help of these descriptions of truths, word pictures, different artists created drawings, paintings, sculptures, murthis. Temples, ornaments, decorations, visuals, , music, dance , drama, movies, dolls, idols, icons, and these creations came out to be so charming that they were liked, loved, valued, respected, adored, emulated, preserved, carried forward down the generations
9.3 for example, peace is a potential quality , a law of nature, of the unmanifest absolute, which is the reservoir of all gunas, ie all the laws of nature cognizable by a rishi in the deepest samadhi
so he says shanthi
and he repeats shanthi shanthi shanthihi, to emphasize the profundity
and he may say shaanthaakaram , an embodiment of peace, though there is not any body as such
this is the origin of idol conception.
now to communicate this abstract law of nature, he chooses a concrete . visible media
he chooses his own body , human body as the media / icon
he depicts a word picture of a person with a face, eyes half closed , expressing the calm , restful, posture, shayanam,
this is how the law of nature, takes the visible identity
now this hint is taken by an artist, and he creates a beautiful picture / colorful painting / graceful sculpture / a small or big murthi , idol
this is how the idol gets created
seeing its value, charm, utility, truth, beauty goodness one starts adoring it , calls a form of god, a devatha murthi ,
this is how a devatha murthi comes into existence
and one would like to decorate it, offer food to it , like to bathe it , makes a shade over it , gives vasthra aabharana, mala, sindhoora ,
thus the origin of temples and idolatry starts
and now the common man forgets that it is a law of nature
blind worship continues
and truth of idol is totally covered up and lost to vision, man misses the track , ignorance abounds , rebounds,
that is how idol becomes a obstruction to see the truth, though all happening with the best of intentions,
this continues till the man wakes up , by the call of a realized soul
9.4 and,
birth, growth, decay is another set of laws of nature .
so when the seer sees decay he says hara, the destructive / death principle
and he also sees that it is part of total goodness, so he calls it shivam,
and the principle is personified. metaphorized, as god shiva, and all his episodes are detailed in terms of a murthi, again in the human form with body limbs and features
and further it is made into an idol and worshipped since there what was seen is the goodness in the process of decay and death
so idol conveys not any human form with all mahimas but the laws of nature
but man does not see the principle, sees only what is made visible , only an idol .
the truth of any deva is the laws of nature they represent, not the nama roopa guna
it is amply clear in vedic injunction , ie rigveda, ''richo akshare parame vyoman yasmin deva adhi visheve nishedhuhu ''
9.5
''richo akshare parame vyoman
yasmin deva adhi vishve nisheduhu.
yasthannaveda kim richa karishyathi''
knowledge is stuctured in consciousness,
the pure field of creative intelligence,
beyond the subtlest thinking level,
the pure awareness, the pure being ,
in which reside the impulses of creative intelligence,
the laws of nature responsible for the whole creation
he whose awareness is not open to this level of life,
what can these accomplish for him
it is clear that gods, devas, are laws of nature
-----the laws of nature , ie, gods , devas, are existing for ever, ever alert, without a wink, ''animesha'' is their one description, the one who does not close the eyes
system exists , entities come and go
gods are system components, so eternally existing
and they are no idol, none can see the laws of nature in the idol , as long as one is not going beyond the idol, to the field of akshara, the pure consciousness , ,
the reality of devas is they being , the principles / the laws of nature underlying the governance of the universe
this is the limitation caused at idol worship level
one has to necessarily go beyond
hence remains ignorant since
''yasthannaveda kim richa karishyathi''
10 truth of krishna is actually the krishna consciousness,
also truth of any god is the relevant consciousness,
the particular cluster/ package / bunch of a few relevant principles,
nothing physical, nor mental, nor the feel aspect like reverence devotion etc ,
but it is an aspect of the transcendental reality in which infinite mahimas exist eternally ,
not only of a particular god
so once , the experience of this ultimate truth, the pure consciousness is actually accessed the mahimas start getting downloaded on to the individual earthly life
and once such mahimas are invoked, one is able to create that god in words, word pictures, messages songs pictures paintings , and he selects any medium, any symbol, mostly human selects own image and treats them with additional add ons like 4 hands, and all such glorifications in proportion to his ability to create and express.
that is his privilege. so devotees did create a image of their liking,
shankara too, in his shivananda lahari did describe elaborately
though he declared neti neti, chidananda roopaha
since he did experience the transcendental reality and is in aposition to sing any god's glory as he feels .
so
in conclusion, first the transcendental consciousness, means can be any, including idol worship , and then creation, and glorification of any god of one's choice and ability
so for this guru guidance is vital to know how to go beyond
