Tuesday, June 4, 2024

aspects of the incomprehensible

 


 


 

The innumerable gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion are the human aspects

 of the indescribable and incomprehensible Spirit, as conceived be the finite human mind.

 

 They understand and appreciate human love and emotion, help men to realize

their secular and spiritual ideals, and ultimately enable men to attain liberation

 from the miseries of phenomenal life.

 

The Source of light, intelligence, wisdom, and strength is the One alone

 from whom comes the fulfilment of desire. Yet, as long as a man is bound

 by his human limitations, he cannot but worship God through human forms.

 He must use human symbols. Therefore, Hinduism asks the devotees

 to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son,

 or the ideal friend.

 

But the name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless,

the word to the Silence, the emotion to the serene realization of Peace

 in Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute.

 

The gods gradually merge in the one God, but until that realization is achieved,

 the devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore,

 the Deity is bathed and clothed and decked with ornaments. He is fed and put to sleep.

 He is propitiated with hymns, songs, and prayers. And there are appropriate rites

 connected with all these functions. For instance, to secure for himself external purity,

the priest bathes himself in holy water and puts on a holy cloth. He purifies the mind

 and the sense organs by appropriate meditations. He fortifies the place of worship

 against evil forces by drawing around it circles of fire and water.

 

He awakens the different spiritual centers of the body and invokes the Supreme Spirit in his heart.

Then he transfers the Supreme Spirit to the image before him and worships the image,

 regarding it no longer as clay or stone, but as the embodiment of Spirit,

throbbing with Life and Consciousness. After the worship the Supreme Spirit is recalled

 from the image to Its true sanctuary, the heart of the priest.



~ from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

by Mahendranath Gupta



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