Hey Grace
I'd much rather talk to you than anyone else on this forum. The others just seem incapable of trying to reason coz the 'merciful' God will fry them in heaven if they even try to use their brains. When I say you are not praying to the idol at all coz you are thinking of it as God, someone says "see, you say you are not worhipping the idol and you still worship the idol, haha". lol...such amateurish thinking can take this nowhere except in circles. And when I say I forgot my spectacles and mistook the pic to be of my wife someone says "your analogy is wrong, coz Hindus ain't blind". He doesn't realize that when is comes to realizing divinity, we are all blind. Until such time as when you understand the true nature of God and until such time as you are groping and stumbling in this illusory world we are all blind and we are only trying to make up our own definitions of God. Now, someone will say "I know God coz the Quran has told me about it. Only you are stumbling. I've seen the light". But hey, thats only for you. I don't believe in the Quran just as you don't accept the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads. A muslim says quran is the final word while a christian says bible is the final word. So whom am I to believe? Especially when mere questioning of the book invites God's wrath, how can I be assured you are thinking clearly? Wouldn't it be a much saner conclusion to say that both these religions are just trying to understand god within the scope of their own scriptures? Otherwise, if I reject either book and accept the other, I'm committing equal blasphemy!
nyways, I hope no one continues making such thoughtless posts on this thread hereon.
Let's start by discussing the purpose of a name. You are right, names don't limit. But what you appear to miss is that names identify. So, when I say that I worship Jesus, that name identifies who I worship. When you say that you worship Vishnu or Shiva, you are identifying that you worship a different god than Jesus. And when you, with clear vision, create some physical object and say about the object not that it is a tool to help you worship Ganesha, but that it actually is Ganesha, then you are not worshipping a mental construct but that very physical object which you made.
I agree with the identification part. But what are you identifying? I'm identifying a form of God that I wish to see him as by using particular names. I don't believe I'm worshipping a God different than Jesus. You wish to identify the divine underbelly of the universe as Jesus coz that gives you comfort and me as Krishna and Rama and so on.
Tell me, when to a devotee's mind in Mumbai the idol is Ganesha, and to another devotee's mind in Delhi a different idol is Ganesha, it seems that you would assert that the subjective truth is there are two gods, both of them Ganesha. Is this your understanding? And if so, what would be the absolute number of gods that are being worshipped?
Objectively, the truth is that there are two Gods. But subjectively, each devotee is thinking and feeling the same thing. Like two guys thinking of the same person with different photographs in the hands of each. Absolute number is therefore 1
Yes, and so I am not against iconography. If that is all that you say an idol is, nothing but a tool for worshipping the real god that you belief exists outside the idol. But that is not what I heard you expressing above. What I heard was that god actually existed within the physical construct of the object created by human hands. Please be clear if that is NOT what you meant.
To a devotee's mind, the idol is definitely God. Otherwise, the whole point of worship is defeated. However, the moment you realize that a Hindu worships the same God as Rama and Krishna and Vishnu etc., you realize that he is not restricting God within the "physical constructs of the idol".
If you are never informed that the picture is not of your wife so that you live in ignorance of the truth, then it would be the same. But should you be informed, then I would hope that though that image had helped you for some time, that out of deference for your real wife, you would lay that picture aside and, without any image at all, learn to simply focus on her in your heart.
But exactly! How do you know the true nature of God? How can you describe the infinite to me in finite words? Until such time as you realize the non-dual and infinite nature of divine energy yourself, you only identify God as your mind feels comfortable doing. Every devotee be it hindu muslim or christian finds the same peace in prayer.
oh and even if I focus on her in my heart, I'm still thinking of her form which is certainly idolatry. Besides, having an idol aids worship infinitely more. You interact with God as if he is right in front of you which means devotion starts pouring out like a limitless ocean.
There is one other problem with the use of images as well. Let us suppose that the image you have is indeed an image of your wife. It is a beautiful image. It presents her at her best, it is perhaps a headshot that you carry around in a large enough frame that it is able to even be lifesize. It truly helps you to feel as if she is really with you. I'm sure that such honor and devotion would be well received by your wife. But what if she were to decide to come to where you were and spend some time with you in the flesh? If you chose to continue to share all of your devotion with the image and not with her real presence, how pleased do you think she would be with that type of devotion then? To my understanding, God is really present with us quite apart from the presence of an image. So, to give devotion to the idols that we create and claim that they are our god, and to ignore God who is truly present while doing so, is part of what makes idol worship the antithesis to the true worship of God.
Like I said before "How do you know the true nature of God? How can you describe the infinite to me in finite words? Until such time as you realize the non-dual and infinite nature of divine energy yourself, you only identify God as your mind feels comfortable doing."
Have you seen God? How will you present God before me just like you would present my wife-in-flesh-and-blood before me? Besides, if you say God exists outside of the image or outside of myself or outside of this Earth or outside of the universe, then are setting spatial limits to an infinite entity. A limitless entity has to be both within and without and all pervading.
