Idol worship

IDOL WORSHIP

INTRODUCTION

Idol worship exists since ancient times, and it gives a great spiritual pleasure in our life. Idol worship means worshipping the god in the form of a statue. We can get lot of benefits in our life by worshipping the idols.

People usually would think about gaining wealth by adopting various methods. Most of the people would busily engage in their day to day work, and for them, each and every day would not go smoothly. Some days they may happily live their life, whereas on some other days, they may get tensions and may suffer from ill health, family problems, business/office problems etc. Sometimes people may get bored by regularly doing the same monotonous work. At that time, definitely they would need the help of the divine power. In such a time, if they see the face of the idols, some unknown pleasantness would enter into their mind, and due to that, they would be happy and would be free from their tensions.

Particularly, if we see the idol of Lord Vinayaka, the beautiful elephant god, definitely we would get peace of mind, and we would love to live our life.

Some people would question, ‘An idol is just a part of a stone, and there is no use in worshipping a stone’. By reading the following incident which was happened before 100 years ago, we would get a great clarity in this regard.

Once a person belonging to a different religion while preaching before a public gathering, called all the Hindu idols as just stones and then he picked up one stone from the road, and showed before the public gathering, and said that the idols are also similar to the ordinary stone. Everybody has agreed to his saying, and nodded their head. At that time, the great Muthuramalinga thevar, who was a small boy, then, immediately approached the person, and asked him, whether he is having sister, wife and mother at his home. The religious preacher also nodded his head. Then immediately the pious boy has asked, whether you treat your mother and your sister similar to your wife? And then the small boy has explained to him, that the stone picked up from the road and the stone found in the temples are entirely different, since holy stones found in the temples contains great powers, since they are installed only after performing proper pujas.

After hearing these words from the young boy, the religious preacher felt ashamed, and asked the boy to apologize him for his bad remarks on the Hindu idols. Likewise few holy men had cultivated the bhakti in the minds of the people, and spread the principles of Hinduism amongst the people.

If we worship the god by chanting his names and perform pujas and even if we realize the god is in our soul that would not help us to get more bhakti on the god. Only if we worship the god in the form of an idol, we would get more bhakti, and also we would feel that the idol would protect us throughout our life.

In some temples, big statues of Ayyanar would be installed outside the temples. Lord Ayyanar would appear in the form of a tall man riding a white horse and holding a big sword in his hand. By seeing his divine face, our fear would disappear and we would become very bold, and would be able to face any challenges in our life.

Whenever an idol is installed in a temple, the temple priest would perform proper pujas and chants the names and the divine mantras of the gods and goddesses, in order to invoke the power into the idol. Whenever a devotee come and worships the idol, it would be having sufficient powers to grant various boons to him.

“OM”

WRITTEN BY

R.HARISHANKAR