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Mustafa Said's E-mail Address: MEF-INC@worldnet.att.net
Ram Chandran's E-mail Address:: chandran@nmaa.org or
chandran.burke@juno.com
Mustafa Wrote:
> Dear Ram Chandran,
>
> I read your response to the Idol worship discussion. It seems to me, from
> reading your posting, that you are an intelligent man. I want to know if
> you really believe in idol worship, and if you do, how does it make sense to you? ..............................................................
> Peace.
> Mustafa Saied, MEF Marketing. (Orlando)
Ram Chandran's Reply:
Dear Mustafa Saied:
Vanakkam (Namaskar). Excuse me for delayed reply. Thanks for your kind
remarks.
I am from Madurai, Tamil Nadu and I have quite a few friends from
Islamic faith. I assume that you know Tamil and I appreciate your
sincerity and politeness. You have several questions and there are no
quick answers to your questions. Please read all my postings related to
"Idol Worship." Jerzy Tarasiuk belonging to Christian faith has several
questions that are similar to yours. He is a Physicist from Eastern
Europe and we both agree with the fact that any form of worship of God
is Idol Worship - either the image is created within the mind or an Idol
fabricated with human ingenuity. Take few moments and think deeply about
the worship procedures adopted in Islamic faith. Creative thinking will
always take us beyond our intelligence! Creation is not equal to
manufacturing. Manufacturing requires human intelligence and creation
requires super intelligence.
Why there are so many gods in Hindu religion? I would ask a
counter
question why there are so many religions in this world? Everyone seems
to agree that people are different with diverse customs, beliefs and
traditions. They look and behave differently and they have different
taste for food, languages, music and habits. India is a vast country
with a large population and Hinduism became very flexible to satisfy the
needs of the people. Hinduism contains many sub-sects that include
Vaishnavism, Shaivam, etc. Just imagine a Banyan Tree which started
with a single root and after many years each branch of the tree sets its
own root. There may be several branches and many roots but still the
banyan tree is only one! Hinduism is very much like that!
The unity of Hinduism is preserved by the Hindu scriptures that
include
the Vedas, the Puranas, the great epics and the Bhagavad Gita. The Caste
system is not an integral part of Hindu religion. Professions in vedic
period were classified into four categories: Intellectuals (Brahmin),
Business people (Vaishya), warriors or soldiers (Chathriyas) and
unskilled labor (Sudras). It should be pointed out that the original
classification is not by birth.
The Ramayan, Mahabharat and the puranas were helpful for creating a
society that is moral and law obeying. Rama, the hero of Ramayana is an
ideal character who served as a role model for ideal behavior. The
responsibilities of citizens, teachers, king, soldiers, business men and
the intellectuals were instructed through the epics, puranas and the
vedas. Unlike other religion, Hinduism gives complete freedom to Hindus
to practice their day to day life. The rules are subtle and practices
were preserved through family traditions. As a family tradition, I do go
to temples and worship the idols but that is not the end of my religious
practice. I give more importance to how I lead my life on a day to day
basis. What is my role at home, at work and in the community? I get
subtle reminders to these responsibilities when I conduct my worship.
For me, Idol worship is a symbolic worship of God!
Le me stop at this time and allow you to digest what I have said here. I
can explain more after hearing from you.
Om Shanthi! Shanthi! Shanthi!
("Oh God! Peace! Peace! Peace!)
Ram Chandran
Mustafa Saied's reply and my reply response
> The Islamic faith stresses that we as humans cannot comprehend the image of
> God. We are given limited capabilities, and if we can imagine some thing,
> some shape, some form, some face, that is NOT God. Anything at all, if it
> is within our comprehension, is not the image of God. I totally agree with
> you that creation is not the same as manufacturing. That is why we
> consider God as creator of all things. Man can only envision created
> things. In Islam, we are told by God in the Qur'an that there is nothing
> in the created sphere that is even remotely like God. Creatin does not
> require super intelligece, it requires God.
All religions including Hinduism do stress that as humans, we cannot
comprehend the image of God! God is infinity and it cannot be
comprehended but infinity can be symbolized that is what I learnt in
mathematics. We do need a symbol to indicate the entity that can't be
comprehended! I have seen the Islamic worships where the dedicated
people conduct mental prayers. Any form of worship implies some mental
comprehension of God. This may not be complete but everybody
understands the limitation of their intelligence! Muslims believe
(rightly) that God has written Qur'an which implies human beings are
able to understand what God expects from the believers! The English
word "G O D" symbolically represents the noncom prehensible entity
called God! Please think carefully before you jump into quick
conclusion. At the moment of worship human mind meditates "God." The
god may not have a name, may not have a form but the worshiping person
feels that he (she) is very near (or very far) to God! That is "Idol"
worship and such an idol needs not necessarily "a physical matter" or
"mental image."
Therefore, I may have to disagree with you about your perception on
worshiping a god. You may not realize that it is idol worship and you
may not agree that it is idol worship but fact will not disappear. You
still did not explain why God should forbid "worship of God" by a
dedicated person with honesty, dignity and sincerity.
> The problem that I see with the above comparison is the conflict that would
> arise. Let us imagine that the Banyan tree can do whatever it wants. Now,
> after the other roots have taken hold, what if they require from the
> branches that they suck the water out of the main trunk? What if one root
> needs water to satisfy itself and another needs alcohol? What if the root
> that needs water is hurt by alcohol and the root that needs alcohol is hurt
> by water? This is just one of the many contradictions that could take
> place. Even if it is one tree, the fact that multiple roots are defining
> themselves is inevitably going to lead to disarray.
God did not create many gods! They are fabricated by the
human beings.
God did not create many religions. They are assembled by innovative
human beings! On a general note, I believe that no specific religion can
help anyone to comprehend God. The Grace of the god is the only
requirement for human liberation and elevation. I agree with your view
point that more religions and more gods introduce more problems! God is
beyond the scope of any religion, belief or dogma and Truth is a
pathless land!
> I studied the Ramayan and the Mahabharat when I was in school. Although I
> did not pay much attention to all the minute details, it did not appeal to
> me in terms of logical attributes. A society that is moral and law obeying
> according to who? Who lays down the law? Who says what is law obeying or
> moral and what is not? This is something that I dont understand. What is
> morally correct to you may not be so for someone else? Like you mentioned
> earlier, this world is full of people with diverse mentalities, diverse
> thinking. In such a world, whose idea of morality do you accept?
The world is much more complex for any single religion or a single
government to handle. That is why there are more religions, more
countries, more languages, more governments, more professions and more
political parties. No rules of any single religion, no laws of any
government, etc. can satisfy the requirements of all the people! In the
modern world, religion alone can't solve all the social problems and
conflicts.
> In the Ramayan, you said that Rama is a role model for ideal behavior. Do
> you accept the mistrust of your spouse to be ideal behavior? No. Towards
> the end of Ramayan, Ram does not accept the complete trust in his wife and
> asks her to prove her loyalty to her husband...in public. Would this be
> considered ideal behavior? As a king, I would expect him to set an example
> in trusting your spuse by trusting his wife. To humiliate her in such a
> way would not be considered ideal behavior.
Every human being in this world has good qualities and bad qualities.
Rama is an exceptional person with lots of good qualities. In my daily
life I am forced to play multiple roles: as a father, as a husband, as a
son, as a brother, as a friend, as a teacher, as a boss, as a worker, as
Hindu etc. Almost every day my action on one role conflicts with my
other role. At that moment, I am forced to make a judgement which
pleases some and antagonize someone else. Rama also was forced to play
the role of the King and as a husband. He apparently took an action
that pleased his citizen and brought misery to his wife. Ideal behavior
does not necessarily mean 100 percent correct. Rama was probably 90
percent correct and that is quite good!
> This is something that has created a lot of misunderstanding and feuds
> between people. Think about it. If everybody can have their own
> perspective on their duties and obligations, rights and responsibilities,
> there will be nothing but chaos, simply because everyone does not think
> alike. Just imagine if the government of the US gave freedom to its people
> to pay taxes or not, do you think everybody would pay taxes? It is
> regulated and controlled because law is something that unifies people.
Religions and governments tell the people the rules and laws. Everybody
knows the consequences of not obeying any rule or law! No government or
religion can ever stop people breaking the rules or laws. People do
break the rules and laws and when they are caught, they get punished.
Nothing less or nothing more can be done! Religions and governments
cannot solve all the social evils without total cooperation from the
public.
> I would like you to think about your role at home, at work, in the
> communtiy, etc. Think about it. Who guides you and tells you that what
> you are doing is correct or wrong? God created you, and no one knows what
> is best for you other than God. The message from God should also be proved
> logically, because anybody can come up to you and say that this is a
> message from God. You must logically derive the proof for the message of
> God. Does the message make sense? Does the origin of the message
> logically lead to divinity? Could someone other than God have written this
> message? All these questions will lead you to an understanding that you
> can be comfortable with. Delve on the origin of texts, the morals of the
> stories, the possibility of differing in the understanding of the same
> incident, etc.
These are interesting questions and there are no quick answers to these
questions. To understand God one has to go beyond all religions, beliefs
and dogmas and sincerely pursue for the TRUTH.
> You said that you consider idol worship a symbolic worship of God. I would
> think that if there is a way to worship God directly without any symbolic
> element in it, that would be a more logical choice. If you can directly
> help a friend or symbolically help a friend, wouldnt you directly help him?
What do you mean by direct worship of God? I can help a friend directly
because I can see him, touch him and talk to him. I need to worship God
symbolically because I can't see him, I can't touch or talk to him. I
still can't see how you worship God directly? Your worship is just
symbolic and it is nothing more than that!
Om Shanthi! Shanthi! Shanthi!
"Oh God! Peace! Peace! Peace!)
Ram Chandran
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