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 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. Ofcourse, 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).at lotus feet of swamisurya
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(This topic was earlier discussed in this forum)
Why to go to Temple:
A 'devotee' goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to the Temple .
'I've gone for 30 years now, he wrote, and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 mantras.
But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the Gurus are wasting theirs by giving services at all.
This started a real controversy in the 'Letters to the Editor' column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone
wrote this clincher:
I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this... They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to the Temple for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!
When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something!
We should be very thankful to Supreme Lord that He is giving us a chance to serve Him even in this material world through deity worship.
In this age of Kali, we need Temples because we will never be able to purify ourselves without assocaition of pure devotees and without taking darshan of Supreme Lord, without serving Him.
May Krishna bless us all with His pure devotional love and service.
Hari Bol!
we are not against Idol worship. Idol is not God but stands as representative. It is not a direct worship.
When the finger points to a dish of food, you must look at the dish, go and eat it. Without doing that, what is the use of constantly looking at the finger? Ofcourse, since the purpose is served, you should not cut off the finger of the person, who showed you the dish. Let the finger remain; it will be useful for the next person.
There are different stages in the worship of Lord. 1) Worship of formless or Nirakar God; 2) idols of past human incarnations like Krishna or energetic incarnations (belong to upper world) like Shiva & 3) worship of contemporary human incarnation.
These are different stages & finally one has to worship contemporary human incarnation of Lord, which is only the highest. Nobody should limit in either 1st & 2nd stages through out their life time. Everybody has to move to the final i.e., 3rd stage. Before reaching the final stage, a brief time might pass through the 1st and 2nd stage and in such there is no problem. But if one continues through out lifetime in 1st or 2nd stage alone, then Gita says the following.
Gita says that it is very difficult to worship formless God or Nirakar God and leads to misery also (Avyaktahigatir dukham…). It also says that if one worships the inert statue (idol), he will be born as a stone (Bhutejya yanti Bhutani). Gita says that the Lord comes down in human form (Maanusheem tanu masritam…) and one must worship such human incarnation of Lord.
Replies
DEITY WORSHIP IS NOT IDOL WORSHIP.
http://www.iskcondesiretree.net/group/krishnaconsciousness/forum/to...
THE WORSHIP OF SHALAGRAMA- SHILA.
http://www.iskcondesiretree.net/group/krishnaconsciousness/forum/to...
Q. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ARCA-MURTI ?
http://www.iskcondesiretree.net/group/krishnaconsciousness/forum/to...
DEITY WORSHIP
http://www.iskcondesiretree.net/group/krishnaconsciousness/forum/to...
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
(This topic was earlier discussed in this forum)
Why to go to Temple:
A 'devotee' goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to the Temple .
'I've gone for 30 years now, he wrote, and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 mantras.
But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the Gurus are wasting theirs by giving services at all.
This started a real controversy in the 'Letters to the Editor' column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone
wrote this clincher:
I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this... They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to the Temple for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!
When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something!
We should be very thankful to Supreme Lord that He is giving us a chance to serve Him even in this material world through deity worship.
In this age of Kali, we need Temples because we will never be able to purify ourselves without assocaition of pure devotees and without taking darshan of Supreme Lord, without serving Him.
May Krishna bless us all with His pure devotional love and service.
Hari Bol!
YS,
Sunaina
When the finger points to a dish of food, you must look at the dish, go and eat it. Without doing that, what is the use of constantly looking at the finger? Ofcourse, since the purpose is served, you should not cut off the finger of the person, who showed you the dish. Let the finger remain; it will be useful for the next person.
There are different stages in the worship of Lord. 1) Worship of formless or Nirakar God; 2) idols of past human incarnations like Krishna or energetic incarnations (belong to upper world) like Shiva & 3) worship of contemporary human incarnation.
These are different stages & finally one has to worship contemporary human incarnation of Lord, which is only the highest. Nobody should limit in either 1st & 2nd stages through out their life time. Everybody has to move to the final i.e., 3rd stage. Before reaching the final stage, a brief time might pass through the 1st and 2nd stage and in such there is no problem. But if one continues through out lifetime in 1st or 2nd stage alone, then Gita says the following.
Gita says that it is very difficult to worship formless God or Nirakar God and leads to misery also (Avyaktahigatir dukham…). It also says that if one worships the inert statue (idol), he will be born as a stone (Bhutejya yanti Bhutani). Gita says that the Lord comes down in human form (Maanusheem tanu masritam…) and one must worship such human incarnation of Lord.
at lotus feet of swami
surya