Idol Worship

Sahaj Marg has nowhere said that temple worship is wrong, nor does Master expressly forbid idol worship. Master has clarified that there is a correct way of worshipping an idol and this is to worship the idol as a representation of the divine, i.e. we are expected to worship the divine through this representation and not stop with worshipping the representation itself. If a person is capable of this, then there is nothing wrong in idol worship. Master continues to say that when we are able to transfer our worship to the Ultimate, then where is the need to depend on a representation?

I have often felt that we prefer to worship Him outside us because it is possible then to isolate Him from ourselves. A God in the temple, in the pooja room, can be safely locked up until I need Him again. A God within is perhaps a perpetual nuisance for one whose intentions are not so genuine, whose aspirations are not so good, whose practices are not so ethical. He does not want a permanent witness to himself. It is my submission that temple worship has perhaps evolved out of this need to isolate God from our existence, to be gone to when we need Him, put a prayer, put some money in the hundi (box for collecting money in temples), come back thinking, "I have sacrificed, and surely I will get," forgetting that what we have is also His. He is the Master of the Universe.

The temple worship of the day: All this temple worship, this ritualisation of what should have been a very glorious, sacred, loving affair - it is purely commercial today. A lot of noise, a lot of valuable camphor burnt away into smoke, the peace of the neighbourhood upset by so-called bhaktas and this hypocrisy of taking a coconut and bringing two halves of it back home for your chutney. So let us not indulge in these things. People should be serious about where they are going, and why they are going there, and how they are going there. God cannot be desecrated. God cannot be lied to. Every time we attempt it, we lie to ourselves. Everything that you do to God, you do to yourself. If you ennoble Him, you ennoble yourself. If you Divinise Him, you Divinise yourself. If you love Him, that love comes back to yourself.

People ask me, "What is the logic of meditation? What is wrong with pooja: murthi pooja (idol worship), temple pooja?" There is nothing wrong, but it is a limitation. And if God is everywhere, it is a denial of that truth to have to go to a temple to find Him there. If He is in everything, surely He is in me as much as in that temple. Why not seek Him within me, within myself?

It is well known in traditional religion that objects of worship in temples have to be sanctified by what is known as the Prana Prathishta, and unless this has been done there is no sense in worshipping any material object. Without a great Master capable of transmitting the Divine essence, the Prana Prathishta cannot happen irrespective of the ceremonial or ritualistic forms associated with this act.

Relevance to our System: It is therefore necessary to understand what precisely our Master is doing, and how it is nothing but this very same Prana Prathishta, now being done to human individuals, thereby converting such individuals into temples of God. In essence, therefore, what is done during transmission is to put Divinity back into the heart of the individual where it really belongs, and thus remove man's dependence from external objects and put it back within himself.

In meditation the adoration is therefore directed to one's own heart, to the Divinity present therein, and by this act of transcendental worship, the Divinisation of human being, in whom such a seed sown, is made possible, progressively and rapidly, to culminate in the ultimate achievement of total Divinisation of the person.

What is wrong if we go to temple and think of Master there too? I have told this story many times. I had a distant relative who was in the second world war, he was in the postal department of the army and he was posted in Egypt and his wife was somewhere in Tanjore, a Brahmin girl and you know people coming and bringing letters and funny stories about him. So she wrote to him finally you see, 'I hear so many stories about you - what is going on? He wrote back to her 'whatever I do and with whomever I do it, I only think of you'(laughter). Now tell me is it right? So it is same as saying I think of the Master when I go to the temple.

Why meditation and traditional worship cannot go on side by side? When a higher and more enlightened form of association with the Ultimate is available, it would not only be superfluous but unwise to stick to lower forms which can drag one down from the higher level.

Other types of idol worships: The idol of stone or metal representing deity has been replaced by flesh-and-blood idols used to represent Master. Such idols are many. To some abhyasis the father has become such an idol. Master is no doubt maintained in the background, but it is the father-idol that is in the forefront, and which receives the abhyasi's love, veneration and prayers. The father has been idolised.

To other abhyasis the preceptor has become such an idol. I believe that any abhyasi who says, "my preceptor" when talking about the preceptor who is serving him has fallen into this from of idol worship. Here it is the preceptor who has been transformed into an idol, or idolised. Here again the Master may be in the background, but is that Master's rightful place? When Master says that very gods are functionaries of Nature, and are there to serve and not to be served, can we deify preceptors and relatives in this way?

I must say that preceptors generally do not fall into this error. But abhyasis idolise them to the extent of ascribing to them the credit which should go to the Master. Where our credit is given, there goes our gratitude and this is followed by our love. So, wrongly ascribed credit can be disastrous in leading to the creation of an idol for us. So, Master's message is quite clear. All credit goes only to our Master. When we give credit where it is not due, that too is a form of idol worship. We should beware of falling into such errors.

When Master is with us, we need not go to any preceptor unless Master instructs us to do so, or Master has approved a general programme of individual sitting in which we may then safely participate.

TIRTHA YATRAS (PILGRIMAGES):
People do tirtha yatra. They go from place to place and spend many years and a lot of money in bathing in holy rivers and praying at famous temples. Some do this all their lives. But what is the result? Have they derived any spiritual benefit? They only get the satisfaction that they have bathed in so many places and worshiped in so many temples. That is all. But the real yatra is the inner yatra of the soul. That is the true yatra. This is what we do in our practice.

It is not necessary to go to the Ganges. It is my mind, it is my faith, which makes even a bucket of water the pavitra Ganga. What is there in the Ganga? Yes, of course, the Puranas tell us that it is flowing from the right big toenail of Lord Vishnu. Yes, if I can do it I will go there, but does it mean that those who cannot go to the Ganga are denied, or will be denied mukti (liberation)? Is every Muslim who doesn't go to Mecca denied his liberation? It cannot be. Kabir has written that if the water of the Ganga is holy, then every crocodile in it should get moksha! A gross act cannot lead to a subtle result. We must try to understand this.

Therefore Sanathana Dharma says, spiritual science says, sitting where you are, if you are able to invoke that divinity within yourself, link yourself to that with which you are eternally connected but which link you have forgotten, you can never break it. Have faith in yourself. So this is the great lesson of spirituality: don't wander hither and thither. Don't look to religions and gods. They are creations of human beings.

He who is the creator of the Universe is in the heart of everything that He has created. Don't go wandering around. Look inside. See Him in your heart as the antaryamin, who is your controller, who is your creator, who is your supporter from within. Seek Him within. You don't have to go wandering on tirtha yatra, spending money, acquiring diseases.

So, when we have lost touch with the within, we seek outside. Therefore all this misguided tirtha yatras. Tirtha yatras originally meant the inner journey of the soul through various points, the chakras (spiritual knots). Our poverty of spirit, our lack of faith, makes us happy that, "Yes, we have done it." The Muslim is happy that he has been to Mecca, the Hindu is happy that he has been to Badrinath, and the Christian that he has been to Jerusalem, perhaps. And there again we are happy that we can leave Him behind and come back home to be safe away from Him.

In the spiritual journey it is not the travel of the body that takes us to the goal. It is the Soul which has become imprisoned in the heart that has to be made to move; and then to go up point by point until the destination is reached. This is the real yatra.

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