Why Hindus Worship God Using Sculptures or Murti's or Why Hindu's are Polytheistic ?

Most of the people would have noticed many Hindu's going temple's & worshiping infront of Statues which they call murti of their deity or God, In Ramayna also you may have read Sita worshiping the Statue of Godess Parvati (i.e wife of lord Shiva) also Sri Rama himself created a Shiva lingam & worshiped today known as Rameshwaram, it was near 14 Lakh years back we are talking.

To understand this we have to first understand the roots of Hinduism i.e Vedas, Vedas say there is only one Parmatma who exists, rest are all His manifestations. i.e Parmatma according to vedas is actually Param Tatva i.e Super Element or Ultimate Element, here Tatva is a Sanskrit words which means an Element, and this Element is the source of all sub-atomic particles.

According to vedas, whatever materialistic world you are experiencing is made up of virtual particles thus is virtual & does not exists at all, as we know, there are so many particles and antiparticles which all together makeup this universe , none of them are solid (Generally we use this term when we consider elements like zinc, copper etc) , initially physicists used to believe that all particles or atoms are solid but later in 1920's this was revealed that neither atoms nor any sub-atomic particles are solid i.e they appear to be solid but were not, So everything which we thought was real suddenly became VIRTUAL because everything was made of those virtual particles (vibrating energy strings), that means all elements are virtual and thus in reality does not exist at all, That also means humans, animals, birds, insects which are also made up of those virtual particles are also virtual and thus does not exist in reality.

Vedas & Upanishads in Hinduism mentions this virtual reality as MAYA (MA => Something which appears as solid, dense & real, YA=> but is not) , this secret revelation by Vedas were initially rejected & not believed before 19th century by western physicists but were later respected & accepted with great shock & since then they started carrying deep analysis & researches on these Vedic literature's in Sanatan Dharma.

According to Vedas or Chandogya Upanishad the source of all these vibrating virtual particles is one, and to that Vedas call it Param Tatva, and there is continuous vibrations of OM in that Tatva (Element), due to which Vedas also call it OM. It's actually because of this vibration (OM) creation has occurred. Vedas also call it Braman which is like a characteristic (gunatmak) name of this Element because it's infinitely big in size i.e it's Omnipresent.

"Ekam vipraha bahudha vadanti"
The truth is one and learned call Him by different names.

"truth" here means Braman i.e Om or Super Element or Paramatma, and it is this Tatva who has manifested itself in different forms here in this universe, i.e all the forms either living or non-living, tiniest or largest all are different forms of one Tatva (Element).

So now you know Hindus in reality actually believe in one Supreme Being. and this one Supreme Being is completely different and scientific if as compared to any God mentioned in any other holy books like Quran or Bible etc.

Now you must be thinking then why Hindus have so many Deities like Deity of fire, water, air etc etc or Why Hindu's worship Bagwaan's like lord Shiva, Vishnu & Bramha if they have only one formless God?

To understand this you must understand few terms here,
The term "Bagwaan or God" also represents the same Paramatma i.e Super Element or Param-Tatva But in it's self-realized physical form only, So we can say Bagwaan/God & Paramatma are one & same elementally. Now this statement is True & False both at the same time, It's true because as i said Bagwaan/God is the physical manifestation of Paramatma, and It's False because Bagwan/God is a physical manifestation which is made of Virtual particles & has a form but in reality Paramatma does not have any form. Now as i mentioned earlier everything in this universe is physical manifestation of one Super Element (Parmatma), So therefore all the Deities or Bagwaan's or human beings or animals or any living & non-living things in reality are all manifestations of one Parmatma i.e all of them are God.

Difference between Bagawan\God & Paramatma is, Bagwan is the Self-Realized physical manifestation of Paramatma and thus has a form but Parmatma in actual is formless. (To clearly understand difference between Bagawan\God & Paramatma, See this link: http://www.thehinduforum.com/thread...sm-is-there-any-difference-between-them.2460/)

So Does that also means every human being is Parmatma or Bagwan?

Answer is Yes It's True and Hindu's know this fact, You may be thinking then why don't Hindu's start worshiping every human being because everyone is God??

The only difference between any human being and Bagwaan/God is that the Bagwaan is Self-Realized entity because of which He has direct access to all His powers i.e He is omnipotent & has complete control over Creation, Preservation & Destruction of this universe and is also Omniscient. Rest of other deities have also got some spiritual powers given to them by lord Bramha at the time of their birth or many of them have attained powers by penance. There are near 33 crore Deities created by lord Bhrama who lives in different Galaxies like Devloka, Gandharvaloka, Gauloka etc etc, the Galaxy in which we live is called Prithviloka. So we can see these deities as Aliens with some super natural powers. Job of these deities is to manage all the elements (Not Super Element, talking here about elements made of of atoms i.e virtual elements) present in this universe. All deities reports to the Indra, who is like manager of all the deities, Indra himself reports to lord Bramha. All their jobs are conducted at microscopic levels in this universe, thus it's hard to observe for a normal person with no scientific knowledge.

Now to understand why Hindus make the Statue of these Bagwaan and worship, but before you need to understand the ultimate goal of any Hindu.

As i mentioned all human beings are also God but the difference is that they are not self realized thus their Mind comes under the trap of this "So Called Reality", It's actually this Self Realization i.e Nirvana or Enlightenment which is the ultimate goal of Hindu's,

Hindus even don't prefer to go Heaven their ultimate preference is to become Self Realized as early as possible before they have to leave their human body, else they have to rebirth again & go through the same processes again till either they become self realized or get Moksha.

Here you may be thinking what is this moksha & how is it different from the Self Realization?

Moksha can be achieved in several ways as described in Spiritual texts of Hindus, When a person gets Moksha He/She goes to to the Galaxy of their worshiped Bagwaan/God & stays their with God till the last day of that Galaxy, At the last day before destruction of that Galaxy Bagwan\God himself provide him the real knowledge of self i.e Bramgyan, then after getting that knowledge person attains the highest or Supreme level of Consciousness & becomes Self Realized and he realize that there was no Bagwaan/God , Allah, Jesus or any deity or creation ever happened in reality. it was only He (Parmatma) himself who was present here in all forms, i.e the person himself becomes a God i.e a Self-Realized form.

Remember in Hinduism any Self Realized physical entity whether
it's a human being or animal or even if it's an insect is considered and worshiped as a Bagwaan/God.

To understand further as i said in Hinduism there are many pathways for one Paramatma, out of those pathways Bhakti yoga is one in which Hindus mostly take the help of Statues of Bagwaan's/God.

The Rishi-Muni's i.e Sages or scientific researchers prescribed this way of worshiping because they found several scientific reasons behind this technique and also using this technique it was easy to gradually reach to the ultimate goal as compared to other techniques mentioned in Hinduism like Raj yoga, Gyan yoga etc, Also this technique was very much suitable for the common person who was busy in fulfilling his duties in his day to day life & can't spend much time in practicing other techniques for attaining Self Realization.

 

Now to understand the scientific logic's behind Statues:-

As we understand that there is a direct impact of Visuals seen by any person on his mind which in turn has straight impact on his feelings, i.e with every visual there is a trigger of electrical impulses inside the brain of human body, Rishi's used this logic & designed a technique to get the easy & effortless understanding for Hindus about Hinduism & God, also it became easily applicable and beneficial for every Hindu in their daily lives. So when any Hindu looks the Statue of his God his mind reminds him about that one God and become focused for sometime which triggers the highly efficient electrical signals or you can say Spiritual feelings inside their Brain\Mind which in turn increases the level of emotions of love & devotion inside brain thus making mind to relax and slowly enter into the state of deep meditation & get connected to the infinite consciousness present everywhere, In that state of higher consciousness person's mind and body feels fully relaxed and also feels strong flow of pure energy inside his mind & body which makes him feel lighter & lighter. This simple technique helps Hindu's to feel the presence of God inside them, this process makes them to understand that the real God is present inside the heart of every human being & is the only one responsible for their heart beats.

Also when Hindu offers prasaad (edible item like sweets) in front of Statue, They actually feels in their mind like They in reality are standing in front of their Bagwaan and offering Him sweets, cloths, flowers, water and lots of love, even though they knew that God doesn't require food, clothes, water etc at all but this simple looking technique successfully creates enough divine emotional attachment between the God and his believer or i should say God & his lover,

Consider an example of a 6 year old beautiful looking sweet girl with a teddy bear or baby doll holding in her hand, you may have noticed them literally crying in-case if anyone tries to like hurt their teddy's or if anyone shouts at their doll, even they also knew that it's just a foam made doll and nothing else, but still it hurts them, Now why this happens ? Reason is the feelings which makes them to feel attached with those teddy's as if like they are feeling their pain, you will find lots of love or attachment in their hearts for their teddy's & doll's etc.
All this happens due to physiological reasons which triggers the emotions according to the visuals. This same principle of nature was understood by Rishi's & they created this technique of worshiping physical forms of Self Realized God (i.e Bagwan) by making their Statues in Temples or Home or Offices, as it was not possible to ask God himself to stand in a temple for 24x7 and 365 days...kidn smile emoticon

Recently a research conducted by University of California, Davis, shows for the first time how visual attention affects activity in specific brain cells. The paper, published June 26 in the journal Nature, shows that attention increases the efficiency of signaling into the brain's cerebral cortex and boosts the ratio of signal over noise.

Remember Hindus do not worship Statue's they just use Statue's to offer their love & worship (prarthna) & puja to god/Bagwan. or use it like a technique to increase their love & devotion for God. Similarly like Muslims do not worship Kaaba (which is a physical structure), they use kaaba to worship Allah or Christians do not worship Church or Statue of Jesus, they use statue's to worship God & this technique is proven extremely efficient all over the world till yet. All credit goes to Rishi's of Hinduism who developed this technique many Lakhs of years before.

Remember, Hindus do Prarthna or Upasana or Dhyan of Paramatma but NOT Puja, Puja is done for Bagwan\God only, you will not find any temple of Parmatma (formless supreme being) created anywhere in the world by Hindus. What you may find is only the temple's of self-realized physical manifestations of Parmatma everywhere.

Also as i have said Hindus do Puja of God\Bagwan. So you must also understand what is actually Puja.

Hindi word Puja is derived from Sanskrit word Pujye and has no synonym in any other language in this world, thus you cannot call it Worship also. Puja is the way to offer supreme respect and service to someone. This respect is not mandatory only for God but Hindu's are free to give same supreme respect to parents, guru, self-realized saints, deities. This is the reason why you will find many texts in Hinduism suggesting that everyone should to do Puja of their Mother and Father or Guru's i.e Teachers etc.

Secondly, In Hinduism worshiping God using Statue's are not at all mandatory, it up to the devote if they feels this technique as comfortable and helpful for their spiritual journey they can easily take benefits of this technique.

If anyone has a cube of ice in his mouth and he is sucking it, that does not mean that his mind is trapped in cube but that means he is focused on water preset in it, similarly Hindu who use sculptures or images to do puja or worship does not means that he is worshiping the piece of colorful paper or block of stone, his mind is focused on the formless (Super Element i.e Param Tatva or Paramatma) hidden in those forms ( idols, Murti's, sculptures).

As more as this love & devotion increases in a person as closer as person comes to the God, as closer person comes to the real knowledge thus as closer as he comes closer to his own real identity i.e Real Him.

Here are few ancient examples of using this technique to worship their deity using statues:-

1) Mata sita wife of Shri Ramji used to worship mata parvati everyday using Statues. At the time of swayamvar before participating in it she worshiped mata parvati in temple made in Ashok Vataka where she first time saw Shri Ram ji.

2) In Valmiki's and Vashista Ashram they use to worship Mata saraswati and Shivji and Narayan bagwan using statues and shivalinga's.

3) Mata sati did millions of anusthans of mantra Om Namah Shivay in front of Sivalinga.

4) Rakshasha's like Ravana with guru shukracharya used to do Tantrik Sadhna which is not possible without creating Statues of subjects like mahakali. Ravan himself was devotee of lord Shiva and had a everyday routine worship Shiva using shivalinga at his lanka mahel.

5) Lord Rama who was devotee of Lord Shiva situated the Shiva Linga at Rameshwaram Temple Kerala before proceeding towards Sri Lanka.

6) Look at the Geometrical designs sketched in Vaimanika Upanishad describing the complete geometry setup for designing an Aircraft, which shows how much knowledge the people of those era where having.

There were many artists millions of years back who were expert in Shipkala, this word Shilpkala is a Sanskrit word which is as ancient as Vedic culture, Shilpkala requires the knowledge of Geometry and symmetry, which means the people of those era were very well aware of such concepts.

So now you know why Hindu's USE Status for worshiping God, lastly you must also understand that all the worshiping techniques that Hindu's follow either in temple, home or anywhere are techniques to actually show their devotion & love to God, because all Hindus believe that God Is One, God Is Love & Love Is God..,

Thank you for reading & don't forget to share!!!

by Sandeep Bhan.