IDOLATRY AND DOGMATISM: THE VEILS OF MAYA

Idolatry and Art

The use of images is part of an artistic approach and rendering of our relationship to the Divine. For this sculpture uses statues, painting uses colored surfaces, music uses sound, and poetry uses verbal images. To deny these things as idolatry is only to banish art from our relationship with the Divine. For this reason aniconic traditions have generally remained artistically sterile.

Where for example can we find great religious sculpture or painting among orthodox Muslims or Protestants? Both the Bible and the Koran, though they reject graven images, abound with poetic images, which are responsible for much of the beauty of these books. If a poetic image is acceptable, why not a formal image? Is not a picture worth a thousand words? Why is a poetic form of art allowed as religious but not a plastic form like painting and sculpture?

In fact it could be argued that the literalism of certain religious traditions in worshipping their books has only occurred because they deny the use of images. The book becomes a substitute image to fill that aspect of universal aspiration which requires an object to worship.

Traditions that reject art and the use of images, which are used in most spiritual approaches, are limited and incapable of representing the full aspirations of humanity. Hinduism as Sanatana Dharma or a universal tradition includes all forms of art as valid approaches to the Divine or truth. It has music, dance, poetry, drama, sculpture, painting, architecture, not as ends-in-themselves but as different languages of worship. Yet this has not prevented it from developing formless approaches as well, which it has developed through formless meditation methods to a degree largely unparalleled in aniconic traditions.

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