Idol worship right or wrong?

sridatta
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Idol worship right or wrong?

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Post by sridatta »

The statue or photo is the inert object. The form carved in a stone or painted on a paper is also an imaginary form and not even a direct photo. The statues and photos are only models representing the concept, which is knowledge. The form of statues and photos is mainly human form, which represents the concept that the Lord always comes to this world in human form as said in Gita (Manusheem Tanu Masritam).

Please remember that Gita did not tell that the Lord would come in any other form. The forms of fish, tortoise etc., were only temporarily to kill the demons and nobody worshipped such forms during their time. But Jesus, Mohammad, Rama, Krishna etc were the human forms worshipped by several devotees like Hanuman and Gopikas. The Lord will come in every human generation; otherwise, He becomes partial to a particular generation. If necessary the Lord can come whenever there is necessity as said in Gita (Yedaa yedaahi).

Once this concept is realized, there is no need of temple and statue for you. You should go from school to college and then to university. This does not mean that when you leave the school, the school should be destroyed.

The school must exist for the future batches. Therefore for you, the statue and the photo are not necessary and this does not mean that the statues, photos and temples should be broken. They should be protected and must be respected as the models of divine knowledge for the future ignorant devotees. Some devotees cannot accept the human form, which is before their eyes as said in Veda (Pratyaksha dvishah).

For such devotees the statues and photos are necessary for meditation since they are at the school level. The statues and photos are useful for the meditation of such limited minds as said in Sastra (Pratima svalpa buddhinam). Veda says that the Lord does not exist in the inert objects (Natasya pratima, Nedamtat), but says that the inert objects can stand as models representing the Lord (Adityam brahmeti).

Therefore seeing and meditation upon the statues and photos are correct in the case of the ignorant devotees. But the other rituals like offering food, burning camphor, fume sticks, oil lamps and breaking coconuts, offering flowers etc. are not mentioned in Vedas and there are unnecessary and are causing the air pollution harming the humanity. All these unnecessary rituals should be avoided.

Offering food should also be done to the human form of the Lord only but not to the inert statues. Ijya or Yajna is cooking and offering of the food. Gita says that such Ijya should not be done to the inert objects. In the name of the statues, people are stealing the food and money. The statue and photo is not taking the food or Gurudakshina.
The people behind the statue are taking those things and most of them are either cheating or wasting the money with ignorance. Whatever the Gurudakshina is given should go only to the priest and not the managing devotees. The business of the merchants by selling such materials in the temples should be stopped, because such materials are not even heard in Veda. Of course, the priest should be a Satguru and preach the divine knowledge to the devotees and the devotees should give Gurudakshina to such Satguru only.

Thus, the temple should become a center of learning selfless devotion and divine knowledge and the priest must do only ‘Jnana Yajna’ in the temple and not the ‘dravya yajna’ as said in the Gita (Sreyaan dravyamayat).

Gita condemned such Ijya before inert objects because such Ijya is only cheating and business. Such a devotee will be born as inert object (Bhutejya yanti). This business is connected to removal of the fruits of sins and getting the fruits of good deeds, which are not done.

All this is false, because the theory of ‘karma’ says that one has to suffer for all his bad deeds and can never get the result of any good deed without doing it (Avasyamanubhoktavyam…kalpakotisatairapi). The spiritual path should be preached in the temple, which must be ‘nishkama karma yoga’ i.e., sacrifice of work and sacrifice of fruit (money) of the work to the Lord without aspiring any fruit in return. Remember, that only the Ijya is condemned and not the temples or statues, which are the models of the divine knowledge.

Certainly, neither idol is God nor God is in idol. The idols are in the human form indicating that alive human form of God must be worshipped and every idol to be worshipped is initiated with the special ritual called as Praanapratishthaa (initiation of life), which doesn’t mean that the idol becomes alive by this ritual.

It means only that if the idol is added with life, it becomes alive human form and you should finally catch the human form of God (Satguru), which is relevant to humanity. The Veda says that God is not in idol and the secondary scripture says that idol worship is for beginners only. It is only the worship of a representative model.
The national flag is a representative model of the nation and saluting the flag is saluting the nation since you can’t take an aeroplane to move around the nation in order to salute it! Why people criticizing idol worship are keeping the idols and photos of Jesus on cross in churches and houses? Why are they keeping the albums of photos of their kith and kin staying far to see those with feelings of love?

The idol worship definitely improves the theoretical devotion, which is the mother of practical devotion (service and sacrifice). But, you shall not sit in this beginning LKG class only throughout your life and waste food materials in the worship of idols and rituals (By pouring milk on idol, by burning ghee in fire, by burning sticks used for cooking in the name of Dhuni, by burning oil lamps, candles and fuming materials even if there is no necessity etc.,), which can be offered to God and distributed to beggars dying with hunger.

Idol worship means worshipping the representative models of God to improve theoretical devotion even though God is not directly present in idols. It is just like satisfying the theoretical love on seeing the album of dears. God enters only a human being on this earth for propagation of true spiritual knowledge and can be directly worshipped as Sadguru.

The inert statue is associated with life initiation (Praanapratishthaa), which doesn’t mean that the inert statue becomes alive! It only means that the inert statue shall be associated with life for direct worship, which is the contemporary human incarnation as worshipped by the top most devotees like Hanuman and Gopikas. They didn’t worship the statues of energetic incarnations like God Vishnu or the statues of past human incarnations.

Idol worship is not recommendable if the true concept is analysed. But, it is inevitable to the human devotees in the beginning, who can’t accept human incarnation due to ego and jealousy towards an alive co-human being. The Gita says that every beginning is inevitably defective. In order to remove this jealousy towards co-human beings, it is advised to serve the humanity as God to remove the repulsion between common media and to recognize the alive human incarnation or God in the common human body. The worship of the statues must not involve wastage of food materials except bath and external decoration for attraction.

. Idol worship is essential for the beginners, who can’t accept the human form of God due to ego and jealousy. Of course, neither idol is God nor God is in the idol. The idol is only a representative model of God like the national flag representing the country. The Veda says that God is not in the idol (Na tasya pratimaa...). The Hindu scripture also says that idol worship is meant for beginners having little intellectual analysis (Pratimaahyalpabuddhiinaam). But, it should not be discarded for the beginners.
LKG class is meant for beginners and the only expected thing is that one should not sit in the LKG class throughout his life. You can ask the mockers of idol worship ‘are you not having photo albums of your kith and kin, who are staying far from you?’

The idol worship certainly develops the theoretical devotion, which is the mother of practice of sacrifice and service to God. If the person doing idol worship has to go to hell, the LKG students as well as possessors of photo albums also have to go to hell. If some people of a religion talk ignorantly, don’t generalize your dislike to all the people of religion and to the original founders of the religion. You must respect every religion in this world viewing the original state of the religion neglecting the adulterations done by certain ignorant followers.


While doing worship, be careful to utilize materials properly and don’t follow the blind traditions thinking that such traditions were established by ancient sages. All traditions are not from the time of sages.

Many traditions followed today are blind, developed by middle-age priests, who were really uneducated, spending all their time in blind recitation of the scripture without knowing its meaning. Such traditions can be very easily proved to be meaningless. Wastage of any material, especially food, in worshipping the representative models as statues and photos. This is foolish and irritates God with anger.


For example, a light lit before statue or photo of God has nothing to do with God. First of all, God is not in any inert medium. He always enters a human being only for the sake of preaching right knowledge to humanity. Except this one case of human incarnation, worship of any item of creation as God is only indirect worship of representative model (any item of creation selected by you) of God. You can worship any item of creation as God and you should remember that such item stands for God and not really the God with which God merged.

Such indirect worship is also not wrong, especially in the case of beginners, who are trained in theoretical devotion and the fruit is development of theoretical devotion in which no material is to be wasted. Such inert models can be washed with water, be wiped with cloth and be decorated with flowers and other ornaments so that the vision of statue or photo can inspire to develop theoretical devotion in the minds of devotees. Except these modes required to maintain an inert model, other modes of worship are foolish, which involve wastage of food materials.

You need not lit a light with oil or a candle before the statue in the day time or in night when electrical lights are switched on. Light is required for you only and not for God at all. God is the light of the lights in this world (Tasya bhaasaa… Veda). Actually, God is not in the statue and even if present, He does not require any light. You alone require light for the vision.

When light is there alternatively (like Sun in the day or electrical bulb in the night), what is the necessity of this oil-light or candle? In the ancient days, there is no electrical bulb in the night. Hence, oil lights or candles were lit in the night for the sake of vision of people. Hence, you are wasting material that can be donated to poor people, who do not have electrical bulbs in the night. The oil donated to poor people can be used in their food so that their life lights can be lit through which they can also serve God!

God will be pleased by such donation and will be furious by such wastage due to foolish tradition. Similarly, why do you waste milk etc., in washing statues? It is again wastage of food, which can be donated to poor and beggars. If you are rigid in pouring milk on statue, collect it carefully in a plate kept below the statue and use it as food. Food is created by God to maintain the life lights of human beings and not to waste like this! I assuredly tell all of you that God is furious to such foolish actions.

Don’t pour milk in the snake-abode, which is simply wasted, being absorbed by the soil. If you want to give milk to serpent, you leave some milk in a cup so that the serpent may drink it when it reaches its abode or some other poor creature may drink it. You should watch the consumption of milk properly by standing far to see that it is not wasted. All this is giving food to other living beings (Bhuta Yajna).

Sometimes, you are burning one lakh oil lamps or candles! Be sure that God is terribly furious for such blind action. You are burning ghee, the most precious food material in the fire altars. The fire in which the ghee or food fried by ghee is to be burnt is not this physical fire. It is the hunger-fire of a beggar in which precious food material is to be burnt.

The fire burning on sticks is Laukikaagni or Bhautikaagni. The fire in the form of electricity is also another form of the above fire only called as Vaidyutaagni. Both these fires are inert and no food should be burnt in these two forms. Both these forms are only used to cook food, called as instruments of sacrifice (Yajnasaadhanam) and not to be worshipped in sacrifice (Yajna-upaasyam).

The fire, which is to be worshipped by the sacrifice of ghee-food (called as ghee like calling an oily food as oil through ‘Lakshanaavrutti’, which is calling one part by its associated part) is the Vaishvaanaraagni or Devataagni or hunger fire existing in poor hungry people (Aham Vaishvaanaro… Gita).

Krishna asked the wives of sages to sacrifice the food (prepared to burn in physical fire due to blind tradition) for His hungry friends. God Kapila preached her mother in the Bhagavatam that a fool alone burns ghee in fire altars! You must analyze and get true knowledge for correct practice to get the grace of God without being trapped by foolish people following blindly such ignorant traditions. Such ignorant traditions are not from sages, but, from the foolish priests of middle age, who never understood the meaning of the Veda. Similarly, don’t burn sticks in the temples of Sai Baba in the name of Dhuni. He burnt so since He lived in a condemned Mosque in which poisonous creatures were constantly moving. Why do you waste so many sticks to just tell that Sai Baba maintained a Dhuni? You must understand the context of circumstances in which He burnt such Dhuni. He will be extremely pleased if you donate these sticks to poor people to cook food.


While serving poor and beggars, treat such human beings also as representative models of God in the place of statues and photos so that you do not waste any material and at the same time you are trained in the theoretical devotion, worshipping them as representative models (Pratika) of God. Both targets (1. Not wasting food materials and 2. Worship of representative models of God) are served by this way. You can serve a spiritual preacher also in this way which is coming from sages as good tradition.

Such path is called as ‘service to human beings is service to God’ (Manava sevaa maadhava sevaa). By this way of worship, don’t conclude that every human being is God since human being is only kept as representative model of God. Direct service to God is possible only when the served person is human incarnation. Indirect service is a training, which improves the theoretical devotion.

This training (in which human beings are worshipped as representative models of God instead of statues) also helps you to reduce jealousy towards co-human beings due to which only you are missing the human incarnation. Even the statues are in human form indicating towards worship of alive human incarnation only as the next stage.

Universal Spirituality for World Peace

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