Why worship idols

Here, the idol is seen as a vehicle — a physical, tangible carrier — of God. Rather, they view the statues and images as physical representations of God to help them focus on an aspect of prayer or meditation.

This tradition is reflected in Verse Furthermore, it is important to note that a murti in Hinduism is a form and manifestation of the omnipotent Brahman. Thus, a literal translation of murti as idol is incorrect, for Brahman is not actually confined to the idol. Additionally, Hindus believe that any object is worthy of worship, as it contains divine energy.

Fuses together. Wat will happen then. Will this Maya end then. All this praying and begging from God is a Christian influence. God is the Natural Law - either you are aligned with it's energy through some spiritual discipline, then you are lucky, or you are not aligned with Him, you will face suffering. Thanks Guruji!

This article helps me to understand why I have always longed to visit temples since my younger days and the best part was to ring the bell and listen to the vibration until it stops, felt great besides begging to grant some wishes! And also, in the end I would feel disappointed if I was not able to sit for some time I had heard people say you MUST sit for sometime before you leave but my curious mind always wondered why?

But I sat cos it made me feel at peace to just sit and listen to chanting's or sometimes just sit and soak in the moment, that's what I call 'Bliss'! I would like to know more about Navagraha pradakshina and everything that happens in the temple. It will be a great idea to set things right and let people understand why certain things are followed in the temple which has been according to science but unexplained and misunderstood or blindly followed.

Perhaps, gradually we can get back into following the most important and meaningful practices that are beneficial to enhance our lives rather than blind belief! I love this logic: the term "Hindu So, seeing it as "geographical and cultural identity" seems not at all to be wrong. And if "anyone born in the land of Indus is a Hindu" then also Moslems and Christians can be rightly called Hindus - without having to change their religion!

I truly cannot believe this. I felt this glimpse of some sort of inner awakening. Is this may be A quest to know my inner self? It is just beautiful. Though I felt it in my mind before, experientially is soooo different. Dear Sadhguru, my Master, please bless me so that with your grace, I will hold on to this and work on this till It becomes a part of me. Now that culture is almost extinct, we indians now are an inferior to that culture in everyway, we shit and pollute and engrossed in cinema and alcohol, shameless media and we lead a mindless shallow life.

We needed someone like Sadhguru to remind us about our great ancestors. After we start thinking we tend to ask question so we can not worship sun and moon so our people created the Idol Take your time to go through this calmly.

Sorry for the long length, but you'll find it interesting. There is always an evolution in whatsoever religion. Christianity first diversified into the Catholics and Protestants. Muslims have Syiah and Sunni. Likewise, Hindu, like I said earlier, initialized just based on the population along Indus Valley. Their belief was towards energy and nature.

Energy was named accordingly, like the 'female' energy that travels along the spine chakras is Kundalini or Shakti. Then the maharishis rendered the vedas in accordance with the awesomeness of energy used in life i. It was before then, where technology was not discovered and life was committed more to the concentration of these virtual and spiritual things, helping the human to live up to , years average in Sathya Yuga, 10,years in Treta Yuga, 1, in Dwapara and today Kali Yuga with years.

It decreases as it approaches to the new Sathya Yuga where the intersection is the apocalypse - is in between the conversion of yuga. Thus the human who lived for 10, years were those who were into this subtle science. It was too subtle that it was also believed astral projection like in the movie Insidious is true, which indeed it is. The great ones not all, only the great ones would travel method unknown, but most probably in an ultimate invention called Vimana to other galaxies according to the story by King Kakuda travelled to Brahmaloga.

Back to evolution, their belief was diversified on what they felt to be hailed due to debt in gratitudes. Like Arjuna though being the sub-projection, or literally called child of Bhagavan Indira, didn't have any sensitivity to be only devoted to his creator. Arjuna also hailed Krishna because for saving his family from lethal danger given by the Gauravas. The energy that was compatible changed their life, and they prolonged hailing the respective belief.

With further evolution, people started to be devoted to the avatars of each of this sub-belief. Like today, some are devoted to the sub of female energy, Sri Durgai Amman who mainly concentrates on love and care, though it wholly comes under Saktham. And that is how the diversification came till the 3million Gods accepted in India.

It's not people don't refer to Vedas anymore. It's just that the concentration on the entire Veda has been diminished to only one part of their personal belief which has to be made clear today. Worsened by today's politics, the Hindu teachings are not given compulsorily in schools in some countries. The one that worsens Hinduism belief was the politics and empire-building after human civilization, not to blame but such as the Islam invasion and the massacre in South India during early times around AD if not mistaken, causing some to escape to the S.

E Asian countries around Indonesia. Today, my friends and I, together in a team have initiated our efforts to spread to utter truth like you've mentioned earlier. Hinduism is lot more interesting if studied deeply. That's why some Westerners today started to follow the teaching of Hindu sadhgurus, while holding onto their own religion.

They're mesmerized by the effect of energy by the mantras, yogas and mudras on their life, making their future predicable. Toggle navigation. International Centers Europe 18 locations. Back to Home page. Jan 28, Outlying Islands U. Image courtesy: Shiva Nataraja by ZombyLuvr. Related Tags. The result of this devotion is that the seeds of merit karma are sown. It is because of this that the idols of God are beautifully carved. This is very helpful in the initial stages of worship. Later, as worship matures, faith always remains irrespective of the outer circumstances.

We do not know what God looked like when He was living. The idol of God has been made from the imagination of the carver, so if we worship this idol, does it benefit us? Even stone gives one the fruit of his faith and devotion. It is the faith within us that gives the results. Our faith should be such that we are praying to the real God, wherever He may be, through the idol. We do not have direct access to God, so we are connecting with Him through the medium of the idol.

When we find God, then we no longer need the medium. There is an interesting story of Bhima, one of the five Pandavas from Mahabharat, who believed in the Tirthankar Lord Neminath. His circumstances were such that he could not worship the Lord nor did he have an idol of the Lord, which he could use to worship. He was able to yield the fruits of worshipping Lord Neminath in person! Whose idol is being worshipped? The idol of the One within whom, God has manifested, the One who has realized His true Self, the fully enlightened One.

So if you bow down to the idol, then it reaches the Real God within. By worshiping these idols, the seeds of vitaraagata State of absolute detachment are sown. The goal of the human life is to attain liberation, where one stays in the Knower-Seer state, the non-doer state. In order to reach this state we have to worship the idol of God. There are idols of various kinds of Gods and Goddesses in this world. In the final stage of development, he worships the fully enlightened God the Vitraag Lord the result of which is ultimate liberation.

What is God? You are in search of God. You want to know God. You want to know the function of God. You want to Read More. Who is God? In this world, if you have studied engineering, people call you an engineer; and if you diagnose, These are vehicles of faith.

Contained in the image and the ritual and the accompanying story is the idea that helps man discover the infinity described in the Vedas. It helps him bring the divine into his life. Abrahamic faiths are uncomfortable with idols and images. Catholic faith is the only exception, where God is visualised as an old man and there is much art to show heaven, hell, prophets, angels and demons.

The Protestants shunned art. The Muslims are forbidden to show images of the Prophet, though some artists in medieval Persia tried keeping him veiled though. But the human desire to express divinity through art has not been crushed. Instead of human forms, Islamic artists used calligraphy and architecture to express the divine spirit.

Others have used music to give the formless form. Hinduism has kept no restriction — divinity is expressed through nature, through artefacts, through trees and animals and humans and fantastic creatures. Hinduism celebrates human imagination. Abrahamic religions fear human imagination and tend to restrict it using rules and norms and prohibitions against art.

This tendency to control human imagination and expression of the divine is slowly creeping into Hinduism, with fundamentalism and attacks on artists. Everyone who seeks to control expressions of divinity seeks to contain divinity. But the wise Hindu sages knew that the divine is infinite potential and has infinite expressions. We can access this limitlessness through the limitation of artificial and natural forms, even using icons of Rama and Krishna and Durga and Ganesha, that the ignorant contemptuously refer to as idolatry.

Also read: Is there such a thing as Hindu Halloween? The author writes on mythology.