IDOLATRY AND DOGMATISM: THE VEILS OF MAYA

To insist that God should be given only one name or worshipped in only one way indicates ignorance of the unlimited nature of Truth. True religion shows us the limitations of our outward seeking but without imposing an outer standard on our inner search. The inner search for the infinite and eternal cannot be limited by any social, emotional or intellectual formulation.

There can be no outer group which owns or dispenses the inner Truth as if it were a material or intellectual commodity. Such so-called religion is not a seeking of the Universal and Eternal, but the assertion of a personal point of view which divides humanity into hostile camps.

Idolatry charges people with regarding as Divine some material thing like a stone, a piece of wood, or a picture. Yet even the so-called primitive savage knows that his idol is not the deity he worships but merely a means of communication with it. Idolatry properly understood consists of regarding something other than the Divine as reality - valuing money, sex, power, or any outer object over the Spiritual Being or Pure Consciousness underlying the universe. In Hinduism this belief in the reality of something other than God or the Self, is called ignorance or illusion (avidya or Maya).

Sanatana Dharma teaches that we should regard the Divine as the reality and our true Self. We should not grant reality to anything apart from Consciousness. This, however, is a matter of profound discrimination, not a simple banning of the use of images, and insisting upon a particular outward code of conduct and worship for all people.

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