IDOLATRY AND DOGMATISM: THE VEILS OF MAYA

 Hindu worship consists of burning incense, lighting lamps, reciting prayers and singing devotional songs around these sacred images. Some of these objects of worship are representational. Others are symbolic and geometric, like yantras and mandalas. Some are places like sacred mountains and lakes, where Gods or sages project their influence. All things in the universe are objects of worship once we recognize the sacred presence which pervades all things.

Hindu images of Gods and Goddesses have supernatural characteristics to show their higher reality. Deities may be depicted with several heads, many arms, and various unusual weapons and adornments. Occasionally they may have animal characteristics, like an animal head or body. Some in fact are depicted as animals.

Sometimes they are shown with frightening features like fangs, adorned with serpents, or standing on corpses. Such forms may appear strange to anyone who is ignorant of mythic symbols or the imagistic vision of the higher mind. Yet to a deeper vision - which anyone can come to by a little open-minded study - these images are the great archetypes of life, the embodiment in form of the great truths of the Eternal and the Infinite, in which our ordinary mental constructs must be broken down.

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