IDOLATRY AND DOGMATISM: THE VEILS OF MAYA

Many religious groups insist that their book is literally the Word of God. They have identified God's word with a material thing, a mere book, which is words printed on paper. How can the Infinite and Eternal Reality have speech or words? God is not a physical person who has a mouth. His Word is merely a metaphor for his creative intelligence. This Word is a vibratory state of awareness, not something that can be found in any dictionary or made into any dialect. The Word of God cannot be captured on a piece of paper. Even the words of a great person cannot be reduced to a single book.

To regard an actual book as the word of God is a form of idolatry. This worship of a book creates literalism, or taking all statements, however metaphorical, as actual facts: like the Christian belief that the world was created 6000 years ago because this is the age of the lineages of the prophets given in the Bible since the time of creation. It creates dogma - the idea that something is true merely because it is in a book that is said to be the Word of God.

A book itself does not say anything. It has to be read and interpreted. Usually any book is capable of various interpretations. Scriptures, which are written in archaic and symbolic languages, as well as being the diverse works of many authors, time periods, and points of view, are capable of any number of interpretations as is obvious by the disagreement of Biblical scholars.

A book is a passive object which if used properly can yield knowledge, but if used improperly can yield half-truth or even falsehood. We could compare a book to a musical instrument. The person who plays it is more important than the instrument itself. The worship of books is the product of a period of illiteracy when a book was something rare and valuable, and when people could often afford to have only one book. After the modern information revolution, this worship of books appears quite regressive and can no longer be sustained by any thoughtful person.

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