Let me start by coping from Urvi -This is started by Urvi- This conversation was initiated by Dr. Ved Prakash Patel on his wall. To further understand this, I had started a group chat with Dr. mehrotra, Manish and myself, however its an interesting topic so, Dr. Mehrotra suggested to post it on this blog therefore, upon granting permission from everyone involved - I am sharing it with you all. Please share your thoughts. I have included each dialogs as the conversation progressed. Initial post from Ved Prakash Patel : मेरे घर में किसी भी भगवान की मूर्ति अथवा फ़ोटो नहीं है। मैं एवं मेरे घर का कोई भी सदस्य कभी मंदिर नहीं जाता, कभी पूजा-पाठ नहीं करता। मैं एवं मेरे घर का कोई भी सदस्य कभी पूजा-पाठ , कथा-भागवत में शामिल नहीं होता।ईश्वर तो मेरे साथ ही है, फिर मैं उसकी खोज में इधर-उधर क्यों भटकूँ। मेरा ईश्वर मुझसे अपनी पूजा-पाठ नहीं कराना चाहता। वह मुझे लगातार प्रेरित कर रहा है कि मैं अपना अधिक से अधिक तन, मन, धन समाज से अंध-विश्वास दूर कर समाज को मजबूत करने में लगाऊं। Responded by Manish Singh: Umra bhar Ghalib yahi Bhool Karta raha, Dhool Chehre pe thi, aur Aina saaf karta raha...मेरी नज़र में ग़ालिब और कबीर भी ब्राह्मण हैं , जिन्होंने ब्रह्म को जाना है ....ब्राह्मण बनना होता है , बोध से !! पैदा तो सभी शूद्र (छुद्र) ही होते हैं , भगवान या बुद्ध तो बनना पड़ता है ।।ब्राह्मण, न तो हिन्दू होता, न ही मुस्लिम , न कुछ और , वो सिर्फ़ धार्मिक होता है ।धर्म और सम्प्रदाय में भेद है । जीसस, कृष्ण , नानक, मुहम्मद , कबीर, गौतम, महावीर, गोरखनाथ .........ये सभी धार्मिक थे । Mirza Galib said: Umra bhar Ghalib yahi Bhool Karta raha, Dhool Chehre pe thi, aur Aina saaf karta raha... My glance Ghalib¸ and Kabir, who also go to Brahman Brahmin. Is to become a Brahmin sense!! Created are all shudra (chudra), God or the Buddha, has become. Brahmin is neither Hindu nor Muslim, not anything else, they are just religious. Distinction in religion and creed. Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, Nanak, Kabir, Gautama, Mahavira, gorakshanath ... ... ...These were all religious. तुम्हारा ईश्वर तुम्हारे साथ है। Urvi Jariwala: @ Manish, true... But we have to allow everyone to their own journey. Mostly people are accustomed to having a form of an ideal to worship and thats a global phenomenal. Manish Singh: The journey , is inner one !! And person have to make there own path Urvi Jariwala: @ Manish, yes & agree, however not everyone will realize this path of inner journey. Many will depart from this earth w/out knowing or understanding this path and there will always be some who will need to worship an idol since they are not even aware of the inner journey. Their world is not from within but rather its all an external physical form which is why ( in my understanding) they are dependent on idol worshipping. Ved Prakash Patel responded: ब्राह्मण बनना होता है , बोध से !! पैदा तो सभी शूद्र (छुद्र) ही होते हैं , भगवान या बुद्ध तो बनना पड़ता है ।। Dr. Manish you have rightly said. This is what is said in Vedas. But this version is used only to divert the talk on varn/cast system. Otherwise, as per Manusmriti brahman janm se hota hai, bodh se nahin. In our society also, a person from brahman father is brahman even without bodh & a person from shudra father is shudra even with bodh. Ved Prakash Patel responded: Dr. Manish as I have already stated in my earlier post, different paths have already been created by That Almighty God. Even that path also through which Mars mission have been launched & that path also through which Nagasaki , Hiroshima were destroyed & that path also through which the hindu society is going on to its end. We have only to discover & follow the path as per our wishes Manish Singh responded: Destiny is dangerous word .... Its takes you away from responsible your self , your search , your path , Your parmatma too ! The beauty is , everyone have to walk there own path ... Manish Singh responded: We should call Dr Mehrotra !!January 14 at 10:32pm Manish Singh responded: everyone have to make own path .... There is no readymade path for inner journey .... Ved Prakash Patel replied: Dr. Manish ! I think my statement is misunderstood . I never believe in destiny like things & my statement nohow support it ..... Pravanjan Palai बात तो ठीक है मगर हमारे जैसा अल्प बुद्धि मानव केलिए सगुण की जरूरत है | यह बात शिर्ड़ी के साई बाबा- Urvi Jariwala सगुण comes from understanding & Observing self. When you understand that you are a pile of dust ( Which is what we all will be at some point) , then the way you look at every being will change. The way you handle day2day situation will be out of peace & love. For that, one needs to look from within. ( ie., mentioned by Dr. Manish). Sai Charitra in all chapters ( 53 chap) is also teaching you to see all beings as one and is governed by Only one Supreme Being ( The God), in other word - let go of EGO and treat them with respect. Murti Pooja will not give you सगुण. In my understanding, murti Pooja will train your mind to be focused which is why idol Pooja is practiced globally everywhere as its very easy for people to be emotionally distracted. I dont believe there is anything wrong with idol Pooja. Do whatever that helps you be a better person today than you were yesterday. January 23 at 10:52am · Edited · Like · 1 Deepak Mehrotra My sincere apology for not responding to this. Work commitment was more. Interesting remarks and once again Urvi Jariwala has made good point in her first and last sentence.Deepak Mehrotra Not all religion share same understanding on idol worship. Note- The argument of scholars of Abrahamic faiths is that any attempt to represent their god will only fall short since there is nothing equal to him and that such representations should not be worshipped. Further they opine that it is he that gives a certain creation or creature a certain set of qualities and making gods out of them is insulting the creator”. So muslims do not worship idols. It is different thinking as to what lies at mecca inside ! Judaism strongly prohibits any form of idolatry, and holds that idolatry is not limited to the worship of a statue or picture itself, but also includes worship of the Almighty Himself with the use of mediators and/or any artistic representations of God such as Jesus on the Cross. According to this understanding, even if one directs his worship to the Almighty Himself and not to a statue, picture, or some other created thing, but yet he uses a created thing as a representation of the Almighty in order to assist in his worship of the Almighty, this is also considered a form of idolatry. The concept of omnipresent and omnipotent is very finite. If something is present everywhere , say for example air, how can you define its shape. The moment you define it or give a shape, you have made formless in the form. Thats not the definition of god. But we keep on doing it everyday. Our understanding is limited, we are bound by language barrier and so we cannot define god. Gurunanakji has therefore defined god as formless. Similar experience has been found by Buddhism ,zen and Tibetan teaching. Even Hinduism has experienced the same formless nature of god. Jesus never defines how face of his father look like. NEVER ever Jesus mentioned any facial type of HIS father “God”. He always addressed it as father. Note that Jewish concept of god as formless is different from zen or Buddhist concept of formless god. In latter ,God actually does not exist and hence formless. Your enlightment is god, its a limitation of language to say. Judaism says that there should be no statue of god in any temple, Muslims have gone a step further, they are off shoot of Judaism , and believe that if you find any statue of god ,destroy them! The Muslim invaders babar, humayun in north india, did exactly the same, destroyed most of temples , scratch gold out of temples. History has it, we all know. Hinduism has gone totally in opposite direction, whether its form or formless, no problem, create as many gods as you can. You name it and we have it, not only full name, we have full detail description, function, timing and day of worship. Every day is allotted to one god. Where are we running with this concept, but no , you are made to believe it. And believing the god does not means knowing the god, totally and completely different concept. I am not saying don’t worship God- I am saying don’t worship if you can’t meditate!! Its wast of time. With worship and meditation - should come serenity, pleasantness , energy (chi), as if there was a storm inside - and now it is quite! If one can achieve that with worship an idol- may as well do it. Worship idol can become a strong stimulus towards inner journey. Every particle in this universe is “soulful”. Yesterday at 2:14am · Like Deepak Mehrotra Two statements of Dr Patel that I was intrigued by were- In our society also, a person from brahman father is brahman even without bodh & a person from shudra father is shudra even with ‘bodh’.” AND that path also through which the hindu society is going on to its end” Here in first statement word “bodh” is key- that is the crux of entire story. It is by virtue of this body or knowledge or another term in hindi is antarmann that we stabilise our inner turmoil. Once you have this “bodh” - you will see that your life starts flowing. Your anger and hatred vanishes. Your awareness glows. We discussed awareness and mindfulness in earlier blog. Beware body here is absolutely not synonymous with “gyan” or knowledge. Totally different thing. Bodh here defines inner stability , it defines awareness, a step towards elevating conciousness to spiritual level. That is the reason why buddhists are also called “bodhi”. Buddha attained enlightenment sitting beneath bodhi tree. Of course tree has nothing to do with enlightenment but achieving enlightenment or bodh is important. Second statement - is rebellious. I say rebellious because true pandits won’t like it. They would certainly say that hindu society is going in right direction and they themselves are taking it. But if you look around you will see that many and almost all are running in totally different direction. They have no sense of direction . Infact they are running in different direction and thinking that their path lead to God. Its all external influence and therefore even if you decode hinduism, spirituality has nothing to do with religion. There is no and absolutely no relation of spirituality with religion- whether you code or decode it. God is a byproduct of spiritual thinking. This could be very controversial statement- but here is the explanation. To meet pure- you have to be pure. When you are pure- you have met God-YOURSELF. So whether you meet him on street and on temple or at home how does it matter? A zen master was sitting in meditation. His disciple was given a work to collect woods from country side. The disciple returns late in the evening. Master asked- why you were so late? Disciple bowed down and very humbly apologised - I beg pardon, I was watching a horse polo game on returning. Master asked - so you watched all of it. He said yes master. Did you enjoy it ? Answer was yes master. Master continued - were men tired at the end of game? Yes master - answered disciple with confidence. Master further asked- were horses tired? Disciple got little perplexed and astonished ! But answered with some hesitation - ye.....ye... yes master. Master continued - were the wooden pole and ball in the game were tired? This time disciple begged an excuse, couldnt answer the question. Was very perplexed , wondering what kind of question master has asked? Kept on thinking , if question is asked there is definitely an answer? He went on to cook dinner for master and fellow disciples , then cleaned the house, went to bed trying to sleep. He kept on thinking all night - why master asked last question? If master has asked question, it holds an answer and deep meaning , otherwise he wouldnt ask? What could be the answer? All night he meditated and pondered over one question . As dawn approached, with brightness, it suddenly flashed in his head the essence of masters wisdom. He ran towards master, bowed down, on his knees, looking at floor and masters feet , with mixed excitement requested him - master please repeat the question? Just in case master I might have not listened to your question properly, please repeat ? Master asked again - were the wooden pole and ball in game were tired after the game? Disciples eyes glowed and beamed with confidence this time. Yes master - they were also tired bowing his head in masters feet. Master was rejoiced with happiness. He raised the disciple and said- this is the moment. Your meditation journey completes here. Now you have something. Now you go out and spread the word. Now you have something to give - the true knowledge. Master said - You were confident in earlier questions , but stumbled in last one. I was waiting for that transformation. He continued and explained - Entire universe or existence is in play. Everything living or non-living gets tired. Entire universe needs love and compassion. You can only realise if you understand this compassion via meditation. Entire universe is living and dying . This is continuous process. So whether you find so called inner peace or God sitting in temple or in himalayan range or in home donesnt matter. Crux is have you started the journey? To me it appears he (the master) is saying is true - we see it every day. Every day we see life and death. Actually , in realty the entire process was designed to be simple process, may it be human , animals or cosmic universal balance. When it comes to humans, life and death are made significant because we make and connect with emotions. Strongest emotion is of love and compassion. we built it every day with our loved one. It is not the loss of physical body of our loved ones that we largely mourn, we greatly and pathetically regrets the loss of that love and compassion from our loved one. Someones relative lives in other country, still you can hear, listen, now through technology one can see as well and talk ,feel and exchange . deep down , we are connected with string of emotions of love and compassion. If you dont see for few days and month, still our mind thinks ,physically they are not near or there, but one remain connected with emotions. Loss of emotions like love and compassion has made life and death complex. Talk to any sufi or saints- life and death is in same bowl for them. Seed of life and seed of death were implanted at same time. Yesterday at 2:15am · Like · 1 Deepak Mehrotra There is small similarity between Hinduism and Christianity. Its the way each trys to understand god. In Christian gospel, Matthew says to us to seek a new standard, higher than the old, to grow beyond convention and tradition : you must therefore be perfect just as your Heavenly Father is perfect(Matthew 5,48). Hinduism teaches that soul or atma must unfold and grow and mature and self realisation to meet the god. Both are very similar philosophy as to what to do, and both have equally similar philosophy that they do not tell us how to do it. Here only Buddhism and zen teaches how to do this, by meditation. In April 2013 , Stephen hawkings propagated indea that there is no God and people desperately search for some divine solutions of their problems. His idea hypothesizes that there is no beginning and no end and that galaxies continue to form from spontaneously created matter. This was a huge gathering in Parasadana ,California . After giving a brief historical background on relativistic physics and cosmology, Hawking discussed the idea of a repeating Big Bang. He noted that in the 1980s, he and physicist Roger Penrose proved the universe could not “bounce” when it contracted, as had been theorized. Therefore, time began at the moment of singularity, and this has likely occurred only once, Hawking said. The age of the universe — now believed to be about 13.8 billion years — fits that model, as the number and maturity of observed galaxies seem to fit in the general scheme. Let me address to topic of idol worship in different way. Its important to know as to why temples or church or mosques were erected. Take for example, temples… There is no race on earth which has not built something like a temple – it does not matter whether it is called a masjid or a church or a gurudwara. Today it is possible for us to learn something from other races, but there was a time when we did not even know about the existence of other races, so there was no way to learn from them. The temple is not the fanciful result of the imagination of some eccentric people, its roots lie somewhere deep in the inner consciousness of man. He may have lived far away in the forest, or on a mountain, or in a cave, or on the bank of a river – he may have lived anywhere for that matter – but wherever he has lived man has built something resembling a temple; something has come out of his consciousness. There is no blind imitation in it; they were not constructed by looking at other temples. So all temples have been of different shapes and types, but they have always existed. A place of pilgrimage is where the currents are flowing from the body towards the soul, where the whole atmosphere is charged; from where people have achieved samadhi, from where people realized their enlightenment. Such places have become specially charged. In such a place, if you just open your sails, without doing nothing else, your journey will begin. So all religions have established their places of pilgrimage. Even those religions which were against temples have done it. It is surprising that religions that were against idol worship and temples established places of pilgrimage. It was easy to remove idols, but places of pilgrimage could not be removed because such places have a value which no religions could oppose or deny. I am telling you these things to convey to you the idea that we will not be able to understand the significance of places of pilgrimage until we ourselves realize the need to have them. That need is training of our mind. Yesterday at 2:16am · Like · 1 Deepak Mehrotra When the idols of Easter Island were photographed from airplanes, it could be imagined that they were installed at certain geometrical points, in such a way that they could be seen from the moon on particular nights. I did some reading on a post recently posted by Pradeep where geometric grid of earth aligned all important places of spiritual importance on earth. These twenty feet long idols are not meaningful in themselves, but when their whole pattern is observed from a plane there are indications of some signs and secret messages. Those signs could only be read from the moon. But as long as we had not seen the idols from a plane we could not imagine their possible use; they were still then just idols. In the same way there are many things on this earth about which we will know nothing until our civilization investigates and sets up a similar situation again. There is a famous place of pilgrimage for Jainas known as Samved Shikhar. Twenty-two out of the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas have died there, have left their bodies there. It all seems to have been pre-arranged; otherwise it is impossible that out of twenty-four, twenty-two should happen to die, with long periods of time between them, in the same place. If we believe the Jainas there is a gap of one hundred thousand years between the first and the twenty-fourth tirthankara. That twenty-two of them died in the same place is worth thinking about. The place of pilgrimage for Moslems is the Kaaba. Until the time of Mohammed, there were three hundred and sixty-five idols in Kaaba -- a different idol for each day of the year. All these idols were removed or destroyed, but the central stone which was the center of the temple was not removed. The Kaaba is more ancient than the Muslims religion. The history of Islam is only about fourteen hundred years old, but that black stone in the Kaaba is hundreds of thousands of years old. Some evidence that it represents lord shiva. Point I am trying to make is that relation of idols and human psyche through dual mind thinking is very ancient , so old that it is engraved or imprinted on consciousness. Very difficult to get rid of it. Because it is not clear as to when idol worship eventually became part of society standard, NOT following this standard would make one to stand out. If one wants not to follow it, your priest, pundits etc etc will be very upset. They got upset with Buddha as well. So much that they propagated against him. You will see that there are very few Buddhist temple in india. It was battle of power, and in some cases extravaganza ; and price paid by man so that true value of spiritual understanding was never taught by Hinduism or as a matter of fact by any religion. Christianity is very newborn, and no attempt is made to address meditative practices. Dharma means law or Tao or ultimate law. Dharma means religious ness . This has different meaning from religion. Religious ness can be religion but vice versa may not be true. Religious ness is eternal, religions can come and go, but religious ness never dies. Jesus becomes Christ , Shaykyamuni Gautam becomes Buddha - the enlightment through religious ness not religion. Gurunanakji becomes poet in His presence, and keeps singing till he meets him. Gurunanak ji drowned himself in river only to appear after 3 days. his first speech after this -is called japji. Japji is what gurudwara has, those all scriptures, what he sang in HIS glory. These saints never started religion or dharma and they never propagated the concept of idol worship. There is famous quote by Kabir sahebji- Patthar Puje Hari Milen, To Mein Poojoo Pahar, Tase To Chakki Bhali, Pees Khaye Sansar Kabir correctly points out the irony of our system. He really lived long till age 119. All his life he spoke - Ram and Rahim are one. But what happens at time of his death!! Hindu followers wanted to cremate him whereas his Muslim followers wanted to bury him. This dispute went on for some time. When people, however, lifted the shroud from his body, they found flowers instead of dead body, which were divided by them for performing the last rites according to their own traditions. What it tells you that how ignorant the people are. All gurus and I mean real gurus , They only and repeatedly told their experience with God to external world. But humans have written it down , because its easy to follow than lead, and named it religion. They all were repeatedly saying that its their experience , but man made it rules and regulation , and with time they were known as religion. Scriptures and granth , bible with at least 20 translations and meanings. The true nature of dharma was lost and is lost. The right action and thinking is dharma, its lost. So people do read scriptures with the aim that one day they will meet God. Not sure how this confidence works? So when we speak of Buddha, Nanak, kabir, meera, patanjali, even galib- I agree with above comment that they have understood the meaning of salvation, true happiness. They are drashta not darshanik . There is hell lot of difference in both. Albert Einstein was asked - What is the most important principle in scientific investigation? Do you know what Einstein replied? Even in his wildest dreams the questioner could never have imagined the reply he was given, Einstein said, The absence of egoism. Without a doubt, the key to perfect knowledge is the absence of egoism. Egoism is ignorance. The mind that is filled with the notion of I has almost no room left to welcome truth as its guest. If it were free from this-I-ness there would be lots of room for truth. The house of the heart is too small for two to obtain adequate accommodation. Kabir was not at all wrong when he said the path to God was narrow. The ego is an avid collector of obsessions and prejudices. Can you think of an easier way to appear wise in ones ignorance? The ego gathers bits and pieces of knowledge for its own growth, for its own further development. It steadfastly holds on to its own notions and pet ideas as a way to protect itself. You will notice that any intellectual discussion very quickly evolves into a battle of egos. I have seen it several times and therefore initially started to actively involved, but then realisation comes that its not taking you anywhere. It is just like “seizure or epilepsy” . You have this discussion on religion and in end find yourself extremely tired with no outcome. I have started practicing to watch now. Still not there yet! It doesnt take very long before its my truth, my religion, my scriptures, my God, and not just truth, religion, scriptures, God. The ego thrives on this kind of thing; its whole existence is centered in these kinds of notions. How can truth be present when I asserts itself? How can there be any religion there? How can perfect knowledge find any room? To the extent I is present, truth is absent. In his sort of situation the ego simply accepts the precepts and words of the scripture as truth and remains quite content with itself. This I of self is the sole root symbol of I in Idol. It cannot be removed unless meditative practice and understanding is there. So in summary, whether one does get involved in idol worship or not is matter of personal choice, but end result should be - Is it taking you ( and only you) somewhere better in spiritual realm or not? If not ,then its not worth it. That training of mind is important. Training for inner quite, absolutely quite journey!! Yesterday at 2:18am · Like · 1 PLEASE CONTINUE FROM HERE.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:05:35 +0000
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