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IDOLS AND ICONS: Windows to Wisdom
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When one knows thee, then alien there is none,
then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that
I may never lose the bliss of the touch of
the one in the play of many.
-Gitanjali
IDOL WORSHIP
" There is only one God and He is omnipresent ". True; but to
concentrate on the omnipresent, some fixed point or preliminary form is
needed. And to conceive of the Divine as present everywhere at all
times the mind of man is to be clarified and purified by means of
certain psychological processes called Sadhanas. This is the reason
why not only among the followers of Hinduism but even among Christians
and Buddhists, regular rituals are prescribed for the worship of idols
of God. Cynics question the validity of the type of adoration and say
that will only confirm faith in a superstition. "Can God be a stone or
a piece of paper ?", they ask. This attitude is not correct. By
adhering to the traditionally laid down ritual worship, many aspirants
have attained the vision of the Omnipresent, and stayed in that
incommunicable bliss. In fact, puja (formal worship, at regular hours,
with the recitation of hymns and songs) is the very first step in the
spiritual pilgrimage. Many seekers have undoubtedly achieved an
awareness of God by years of asceticism among jungle caves. But,
starting early with Puja and continuing with scrupulous care, the rites
of Archana, Bhajana and Aradhana (offering of flowers with the
repetition of God's Name, singing His Glory, and adoring Him as a
Living Presence) are more fruitful and satisfying. Meerabai, Sakkubai,
Surdas, Kabirdas, Sankaracharya, and many other saints and realized
souls have proved in their lives that the tme, attention and energy
spent in these religious practices are well spent. They were able by
Aradhana only to visualize the Divine in the specific form which they
used as the instrument.
The entirety of English literature is made up of permutation and
combination of the 26 letters in the alphabet. The Puja, Archana,
Aradhana are as the letters of the spiritual alphabet. The collection
in time of the various items necessary for the worship (the lamps,
camphor, flowers, plates, the cup, bell and the book) needs hours-long
concentration on the Divine. The Puja itself may take another hour or
two of concentrated and purificatory attention, and the performer rises
up, after the recitations and the meditations, a stronger and steadier
pilgrim on the path.
The Omnipresent is not absent in the icon or the picture. We do not
reduce God and shut Him up in a stone image; we affirm and realize
that He is in the icon also. We raise the image to the dimensions of
the Absolute, expand the picture far beyond its frame and through
the processes of sadhana we become aware that the picture can be made
a tool for the mind to escape from its limitations.
When the Maharaja of Alwar in Rajasthan argued before Swami
Vivekananda that God can never be perceived in a picture drawn by an
artist, Vivekananda called upon the Prime Minister who was standing
reverently by, to get the Maharaja's portrait down from the wall and
spit on it! He said, "You need not hesitate. The Maharaja says it
is just a blotch of colors on a bit of canvas and that we should not
be confused with the idea that it is the Maharaja." But,
everyone at the Durbar withdrew in fear. The picture of the Maharaja
was for them an object worthy of adoration.
The sixteen modes of worship laid down in the Sastras help to make the
aspirant aware that he is in the very Presence, and that every gesture
and movement of his has to be motivated by devotion and dedication.
This ensures the purification of the mind of man from ego and all its
brood of blemishes. This is Chitta-Suddhi, the cleansing of all
levels of one's consciousness.
The basic chittha has to be freed from down-dragging impulses. Of what
good is it to cook a rare and costly dish in a vessel contaminated by
dirt? Of what good is it to plant a precious seed in rocky soil? Puja
or Archana offered without a purified heart is sheer waste of time.
But, even a short sincere session of puja spent in Divine Awareness
yields much fruit. Thiruthondar, a Tamil saint, has confessed that he
engaged himself in the worship of the Lord's idol in order to
cleanse his mind. Care has to be taken that you do not notice the
stone- for that instant, the Divine will disappear from view. The
material and the Form are inseparable, but, the seeker must dwell on
the Form which he desires to be manifested in all its glory rather
than the material. He must dwell long and deep over the thought that
God is found through every particle in the universe, that He is not
bound by any limitations of space and time.
Ceaseless effort is necessary to gain and possess Chittha Suddhi.
One has to be ever in Satsang and in activities devoted to the
service of God in various human forms. In the Gita, one can notice
Krishna addressing Arjuna as "Kurunandana "! The usual meaning
given by Scholars to this appellation is "the Scion of the Kuru clan"
but it has a much more profound lesson to teach mankind. Kuru means in
Sanskrit, `do ' and Nandana means, "he who takes delight in." So,
it means Krishna is appreciating the transformation in Arjuna from
inaction to action- Arjuna is the one who takes delight in having some
work to do. He is the one who is sad and dejected if he has no work on
hand. For most of you, Sunday is a holiday which gives delight,
but for Arjuna, the Day which He can devote to God's work is indeed a
Holy Day.
You must have been told that common people in Indian believe that, when
thunderclaps are threatening overhead, the recitation of Arjuna's Nine
Names in a row will save them for a bolt falling on them. This is proof
of the power not only in the Names of God, but also which that of His
devoted adherents- ever pure and in contact with the Absolute- has over
the elements. That is the reason why Aradhana or worship of the
Presence is offered even to great devotees like Thyagarja and Kabir.
They have no identity of their own, they have become one with the
limitless, through the worship of the limited.
-from a discourse of Sri Sathya Sai Baba
given to his students and guests at the Brindavan
College of Arts and Sciences, February 2, 1979
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