Posted on Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 06:42 am:

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Jawmetri:

God and the Purpose of Life, I stopped thinking about these. Ignorance is Bliss. I go to temples, I pray to all gods and i dont analyze the rationality of my beliefs. It is nice and simple this way as long as im keeping myself busy with work and fun activities.

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Posted on Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 01:00 am:

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Kamal:

Ante .. there is a point in the way people argue against Idol worship. When the discussion ultimately boils down to what is God .. we usually come up with abstract definition of 'all pervading' .. meaning .. anything and everything is God .. that draws two small contradictions .. when God is unlimited, boundless .. why are we limiting him to an image of a small idol or a shape? second is, if everything is God and if God is a positive character as is often put out .. then why are "negative things", "negative objects" not attributed to God ..

ofcourse these are the primary questions that I faced in my quest till this point .. but as I pointed out the other day .. I convinced myself that Idols are for good .. they are an embodiment of such a huge God for the convenience of a minute mankind .. I also agree that every religion/faith "visualises" God in one or the other way .. some in a building .. some in a cross .. some in multitude of idols .. and good thing about us Pagans is .. we have different "perfect" representations of different qualities .. the ultimate 'Maryada Purushottam' can only be Rama ; when it comes to love and Dharma - its only Krishna ; when it is anger - its Kali etc etc .. boledu examples .. which I feel people who oppose idol worship miss upon !

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Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 12:05 pm:

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Vjavasi:

why should we think god as something abstract and what is so special about those who are capable of seeing God in abstarct ideas... ability and inclination to see god in form is a divine gift...those who feel threatened by his form look for complex abstract ideas

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Saughmraat:

but its about nature of people's definition of god

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Vjavasi:

who is the author of this theory?..why he feels that bhakthi is selfish?....culmination of all gnana is bhakthi....when did karma yoga became service to man kind....

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Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 07:21 am:

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Kamal:

Hindus suggest three paths to salvation. They are bhakti, karma and jnana. Of these bhakti is rather selfish, for it seeks the salvation of the individual only. Ramakrishna is the finest example of a bhakta. In karma, one does service to mankind. The best examples are Mahatma Gandhi and Vivekananda. And finally we have jnana, which seeks salvation through knowledge of God. The Jnani spreads enlightenment among men. The best example of the jnani is Sri Aurobindo.

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Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 06:02 am:

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Kamal:

Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 12:56 am:

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Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 01:58 am:

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Kamal:

"We all believe God to be without form or shape, but as we begin to think of him, he acquires form and name." This is true for the vast majority of mankind, including Muslims. They cannot think of God in the abstract. Only a few can do so. Which is why gods have come to have forms.

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Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 12:56 am:

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quote:

DEAR Reader, is there a God? No, if we mean by God a "superhuman being" (Oxford dictionary) or if we mean by it a God with a form. But there is an intelligence in the universe, which seems to guide it. We may call it God or by any other name.

Did God create the universe? No. The universe was always there. If we admit that God created the universe, we would raise questions that we can never answer. That is why we say that God and the universe are coeval. Shelly, the poet, says: "The by-pothesis of a pervading spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken." This is the position taken by Kapila, author of Sankhya system of philosophy.

If God has no form, then what is God like? To this question, Einstein has an answer. He says: "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable supreme spirit, Who reveals Himself in the slightest detail we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a supreme reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe forms my idea of God." We are all familiar with this "reasoning power".

I am quite happy with Einstein's concept of God. Do I need a form of this "reasoning power"? Hardly. In any case, any attempt at representation of God is as futile as the effort to picture an electron. The electron is inconceivable.

As God has no form, is it right to set up idols? Yes. Why? Because it is only through symbols of the formless that we can think of God. Symbols are used in all religions. For example, Light. Light is a symbol of God in all religions.

This is not the only argument on the question of form. Vivekananda asks: Who is it that has taken all the forms that exist in the universe? Obviously God.

The fact is: It is inconceivable to think of God in the abstract, says Vivekananda. He writes: "We all believe God to be without form or shape, but as we begin to think of him, he acquires form and name." This is true for the vast majority of mankind, including Muslims. They cannot think of God in the abstract. Only a few can do so. Which is why gods have come to have forms. Forms help men concentrate their thought on the form. This also explains why Shankara provided an Ishwara in his doctrine of Advaita. In short, at the heart of every symbolic representation lies that which is beyond form. It is equally true that one sees God according to one's nature. And the nature of a man depends on how the three gunas-satvic, rajasic and tamasic-are combined in a man. As the nature of men differ from one to another, they can have a God of their own, says Vivekananda. Interestingly Gandhi agrees with it.

Hindus suggest three paths to salvation. They are bhakti, karma and jnana. Of these bhakti is rather selfish, for it seeks the salvation of the individual only. Ramakrishna is the finest example of a bhakta. In karma, one does service to mankind. The best examples are Mahatma Gandhi and Vivekananda. And finally we have jnana, which seeks salvation through knowledge of God. The Jnani spreads enlightenment among men. The best example of the jnani is Sri Aurobindo.

Is the universe pre-determined? This question is often raised. But there is no satisfactory reply. Spinoza, the philosopher of Europe, says that if the universe is pre-determined then God has no role to play in it. Which is why there is need for freedom. Dr S Radhakrishnan says that freedom and necessity lie intertwined in nature without this element of freedom, the cosmic process will appear to be a puppet play, says St. Augustine.

The concept of God never went beyond anthropomorphism among the Semitic faiths. To them God without form was inconceivable. They say that God made man in his own image. What does this mean? It means that God looks like man. The concept of a universal God, a God of all mankind, was never thought of by the Semitic faiths.

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