Page 121 - Path to Perfection

[14-10-1944: pg. 21 (A.B.II - II)]
Idol Worship-Problems Of
Revered Master: “How did idol-worship start? And what for? These two questions are mostly causing worry to people. Some one goes in favour of it; and somebody else stands against it. Both are unacquainted with reality. The midpoint between these (extremes of opposition and favouritism) hardly occurred to anybody’s experience. Someone took up the stone, while somebody else adopted something else as an object of worship. Things of a different sort in relation to that (attitude) so to say, came to be places for general worship. Someone started offering flowers to books; while somebody else did something else like that. Rivers and gutters started being worshipped. Canes and whips (torture instruments) came to be objects of (universal) worship. Slaves (and servants) came to be saluted. Innumerable forms of worship, so to say, were invented as associated to that (attitude to God), as a result of which, preference for multiplicity ensued. The Oneness (of God) started to get veiled; and curtains after curtains came to cover It. It would have been better to give the heart to some single object, to be fixed for worship. Just listen to something more: when an idol had been established (as a concrete object) in front of oneself, it assumed so much the role of God, that it attracted the imploring gaze just to itself, whenever the need for God was there, instead of assuming the manifestation of God’s splendour (in that idol) in making it the centre of one’s attention. People in fact direct their desires for fulfillment to God, but their thought starts to remain confined to that (idol) only. If they go a little higher, and continue rising up that way, it may be possible that happy tidings of advancement trail on them. But here people are hardly ever prepared to give up that (narrow attachment to the idol). There was a time when nobody happened even to be aware of it (idol- worship). Then thought started whirling about to get inclined to gods (deities). Ingenuity came to asset so that deities were sculpturized. These, however, were not intended (originally) to be objects of worship. Later, gradually regard for them began to reverberate in the heart, and God started to be linked to that (sculptured idol). The craftsmanship of the sculptor attracted the heart even more in that direction. Grossness was increasing in keeping with the (deteriorating) times. As such, preference for the gross object got the upper hand; and interested people (with selfish ends in view) imparted more glamour to it (idol worship). That, thus, finally directed orientation and inclination of the mind’s disposition to it; and interest was developed to such an extent as to snap off the link of the heart’s disposition from the higher entity, and looking to nether regions (of self-