Idol worship

Jay Swaminarayan.
Why is there so much stigma that comes with the title 'idol worshipper' these days?
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DEAR Dattaswami

Welcome to this forum and sharing you r thought s


As per the topis you have mention I have some serious disagreement wit it while it doesnot matter as long as we here and learn from each other

as you said

Quote:

In the fourth stage the actual human form of the Lord is realised. In this stage the devotee considers that human form alone is the Lord and loves that human form only. This is the concentration of the positive approach.

In sikh philosphy ( just to remind which is akso shared by various bhagats like kabir, namdev... ) says opposite to it it is considered the first stage and worship of formless god last stage .

it is interesting that you mentione dthat it is difficult to worship formless god and it is mentioned in Gita then so go on to say it is first stage , I think it never happen in any system of learning that you learn Most difficult things first and then go on for easy things like worshiping human form . As matter of fact you can see the caos that has been craeted with this in India in present times here thousandas of babas and acharays and mata ji has taken place of one formless god . the situation before this was even better when people in india were worshiping thiusands od different demi gods and gods at tall these character were infallible but now every day new baba , mata , acharaya come in new and a the same time one of them is being convicted for crimes like rape, murder , child abuse on daily bases .

While said that I not at all expect myself to absolutely right but one thing that I believe quite firmly with Grace of AKAL (Formless god ) is that he is the only one to be worshiped
I also want to mentionesd that many bhagats whose BANI ( Writings are there in Guru Granth Sahib used to be ideal worshiper before but progressed from that stage to reach formless stage .


Jatinder Singh

But doesn't Sikhism say that God cannot be described in his entirety and therefore cannot be worshipped as a whole? [Hence why Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji always says I worship the naam I worship the Guru but never really says I worship the LORD].
Murti puja takes the God and puts it through it the spectrum like the white light to reveal all the knowable aspects of God [Generator, Operator, Destroyer].
Babas etc. have not exactly taken the place of God, everyone has GOD in them but these people are more aware of the God within them HENCE the glory of God is seen much clearer in them by others and the Godliness dwelling within them is worshipped.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/interfaith-dialogues/1767-idol-worship.html
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=1767
So God is within all. Even during arti the santo/pujari/priest will do arti to the murti of God for a long time and then near the end wave the lamp around the congregation quickly before returning to the murti, he is doing ARTI to the God present within the congregation.

Dear Dattaswami

first of all forgive me if any way I may have offended you but I never ment to do so

Now let clear some point about what I believe

I Never said that there are no incarcination of god or god is not capable of taking human form
what I said was that formless could be considered as base form the form in whicjh he always have been word formless i used here is just denoting the incapability of human intelect and sensory power to precieve him fully due to infinite nature of god , I agree with you that god has incarnations

Now you said that it is easier to serve human god but the problem is recogniging him Agreed now if I can give you more easiwer way to serve god thst sikhism reaches us that is to serve the creation of god ( which is god himself ) that teaches sikh to do sewa ( selfless service to others )
now your concept of human incarnation has one big disadvantage first the question is at a given time is there only one incarnation on earth and if you say yes then
second question then do you thinkhe accesible to all the human beings on the earth no matter how science has progressed do you thing god in human form can reach each and every human being on earth ( in the same context GuruNanak dev did three world tours on foot to reach aas many people as possible but still do you think he reached every body on the eartg at that partcuar time ?)

Now let say you are so lucky that you have all the means at your service to roam around the globe and look for real incarnation do think human being in life span of 60- 80 years can go and test each and every human guru available in the market and d find the real one with what ever prescribed test he has got and then serve him , well as for me it is difficult to imagine

Quote:

Thus God provided both the ways separately. You purchase the artificial diamonds and let somebody purchases the original diamond

as for this I would like to admit that I have never ever thought the people doing Idol worship as wrong and I am ready bow to nay person whois trying to reach AKAL PURAKH (GOD ) by any means that KAL has blesed him .
I again ask for forgiveness for nay offence


Jatinder Singh