Deity Worship

                                                        

 

It is commonly observed that people of all religions mostly worship God (Krsna) in the form of a deity/idol/portraits. But as we have never seen God(Krsna), a question arises in our mind that, ‘‘how can we make idols of God (Krsna) when we have not seen him?’’ This question has a very simple answer. Look at the examples. If police has to catch a missing person in absence of his/her picture, they just ask the person (who has seen that  missing person) to give the description of the person to be found to a sketch artist and the artist makes the picture of that person exactly as he looks in reality. Similarly we make idols/deity/portrait of God. But again a question arises that “from where do we get description of Krsna?’’ The description of Krsna is available in ‘ Vedas’

and other scriptures. From that description we can make deities of Krsna. Now is it important to worship deity? No of course not. Deity worship is to be done only by a person who wants to understand Krsna but is not self realized. This is because a self realized person can see Krsna in everything around him. In Srimad Bhagvad Geeta,

“Isvara sarva bhutanaam hridayese arjuna tishthati

Bhramayan sarva bhutani brahma rudhani mayya”

“God is situated in heart of everyone’s heart, O Arjuna and is directing the wanderings of the living entities ,who are seated as on machine, made of material energy.One who understands this sloka with depth needs no deity to worship. But one who has not understood sloka needs a deity to worship. In the beginning, every person who wants to understand Krsna needs a deity of Krsna to worship. Deity worship helps a person to increase love with Krsna. In Srimad bhagvad Geeta Krsna explains to Arjuna :

                        “sarva younisu kaunteya aham bija pradah pita”

“ I am the seed giving father of all the organisms in this world.” So to give happiness to his children a father can do anything. So can’t he reside in a deity to give happiness to his children? Of course he can. Krsna is the supreme and free to do anything. So he can also reside in a deity for happiness of his children. This is the reason whu we need deity. A deity is like a picture of your father. Like when you want to remind your father in his absence you see or remember him through his pictures, similarly we have deities to remind our supreme father  Krsna.

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