“Idol worship is  form of yoga , connecting the individual and the cosmos”

A Little child wants to know about human beings, animals, letters, alphabets and buildings. We do not give the child the real humans, tigers and lions, or ask him to read and write or take real bricks and cement to construct a building. We instead give the child models of animals, the alphabet and wood locks to play with.

It is the same with idols and symbols… A beginning of any form of meditative practice will not understand if you say cosmos, divine, energy, consciousness or God. Instead we say there are obstacles to our work in life and this deity is capable of removing obstacles – we have an idol or picture of Ganesha, we weave many stories around the picture just like we give children toys to play with. As the mind goes on contemplating the image of the deity , it becomes in due course of time the qualities that the deity represents – removing obstacles and progressing ahead in life like Ganesha, administrating royal responsibilities like Krishna ,performing one’s duty like Rama, generating wealth like Lakshmi ,perfecting wisdom like Saraswathi ,transcending fear with energy like Durga ,leaping over mountains and having the courage and confidence to accomplish any daunting task like Hanuman or being absorbed in contemplative silence like Dakhshinamurthi .

Idol worship is a form of yoga, connecting the individual consciousness with the cosmic consciousness. When you have to teach a student about India or America or the countries of the world in geography class, there is no possibility for a teacher to take the student to all these places. And even if taken around, the student will never be able to fathom how big a country is. The simplest technique is to show a map drawn to scale where the student can travel around the world seated in the classroom.

Idols, pictures Images, Symbols and sculptures are nothing but maps of divinity drawn to scale. Just as maps of the United States is not the real US, the idol is not God, but representation and a symbol for our mind to understand and connect with the idea of God and invoke that presence and energy within us. Never forget that each one of us is a state of consciousness and connecting with the images and idols only helps to refine it.

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