Idol Worship & Personality
Worship
Idol worship is familiar to everyone since most of us were practicing that. Fanatic idol worshippers do not believe in Personality worship. But there are people who do both. In real spirituality, worship of the Guru is only necessary and not any idol worship.
There are certain advantages and disadvantages in idol worship. Any worship demands devotion (Bhakti), carefulness (Shraddha), and service (Seva). Devotion contains love & faith, in that, carefulness is not warranted, but in case of service, carefulness is highly required.
In idol worship, devotion is possible because the disciples imagine the idol as the personality and start loving with faith. Generally service is rendered, when the receiver is recognizing it. Otherwise there is no value for service. In idol worship there is no living receiver to recognize the service thereby idol worshippers are free to do anything they like, towards the idol, because there is nobody to recognize or demand any particular service. They imagine that the personality of the idol receives everything whatever they offer.
So, most of the idol worshippers can’t worship a living personality, who is able to recognize their devotion and service. They may lose the freedom of their worship, if they are corrected in their devotion and service. It is very safe for these people to be away from the present ‘here and now’ condition of the personality which may sometimes be against the scriptures written many years ago by earlier devotees, without consulting the personality. That is why we find lot of changes in the way of guidelines, processes of the devotion and services to the same personality, varying from place to place. The reason is they have no contact with the personality nor they are aware what the personality requires at this time.
If the personality of the idol is active, then the confusion stops and differences in kinds of worship can be avoided.
In spirituality Guru or the guide is most important than God. But in idol worship, God is more important than the guide.
When you accept someone as the Guru in spirituality, the devotion and service is only for the Guru and not for any idol. In real spirituality, it is a trial of connecting with the spirit within, not with any idol or personality of idol. Since the spirit doesn’t recognize any devotion or service of the practitioners, it is recognized by the Guru and corrective measures are taken from time to time. Here, the practitioners consider the Guru as the representative of God, because through this only it is possible to realize the God. Since Guru is living, there is no question of idol worship and the God referred here, is considered as an energy which doesn’t have any form or name. If the practitioner is able to recognize this energy in the Guru, then there is no need of a separate idol to imagine as God. In spirituality, the Guru is everything and if the Guru is a Satguru, He will be in a position to make you realize the truth without any idol.
Gurus other than Satguru are not Jnanis who will not be in a position to guide the disciple without any help of scriptures. Since ordinary Gurus are not realized persons, they recommend idol worship and service to God. These Gurus are yet to be realized and can’t help the disciple for realization of God.
Satguru is the person who has been recognized by the God’s energy and also authorized to transmit this energy to others. Since realization is over, He neither remembers, or worships any idol or personality nor He recommends idol worship. If the disciple is able to recognize Him through devotion and sincere service, that is the goal of spiritual journey.
Living Gurus are the persons who can guide and correct their disciples on true love, faith and service. But if the living Gurus are not Satgurus, then they recommend for devotion and faith towards God directly through idol worship and unrecognized service.
Personality worship is allowed only in spirituality for the living Guru and ordinary persons may have the ego to serve a living Personality. For them, idol worship could be a better way which will not reduce their ego, nor do they lose the freedom from correction and guidelines.
Somebody may still claim that idol worship has spirituality but in any case, spirituality doesn’t have idol worship.
