Page 7 - Towards The Goal Of Beautiful Life

idol worship, which ought to have been beneficial to the human society, actually turned
out to be harmful to it. The main reason for this harm was the ignorance and the blind

faith of the common people, who were deliberately and purposely encouraged by the
class of clergy, who took full advantage of the ignorance of the masses, that the stone

idol of God was not God Himself. Further the clergy deliberately encouraged and
misguided people to perform various types of rites, rituals and religious practises. This

class of clergy also shrewdly perpetuated apprehensions in the minds of the people that,
only on performing certain rites and rituals would they earn the blessings of God and

receive boons and bounties from Him, but if they failed to do so, they would invoke God's
wrath, which would bring hardships and calamities in their lives. There is no need to

specifically mention here that, selfishness of the clergy alone was the sole motivation for
perpetuating these apprehensions in the minds of the people. These unhealthy influences

inevitably pushed the human society into miserable and deplorable condition. People lost
their self-confidence and started running to priests, clergy, Babas and Fakirs, even for

very minor adversities and difficulties, to obtain God's blessings and to avoid His wrath.
Such a pitiable condition of the society is prevailing, not only in one particular religion,

but also in all the other religions in the world in various forms.

True Concept of Worship
A question may now arise as to how the worship of stone idol got rooted in the

minds of the people and what was the real intention behind this idol worship? What was
the intention of Rishis, Saints and sages behind teaching idol worship? Let us briefly

answer these questions. The saints and sages being men of wisdom, definitely knew that
the stone idol could never be God. They also knew that any amount of formalities and

ceremonies performed on this stone idol or symbol of God could never convert it into real
God and accordingly these saints and sages correctly guided common people about these

two aspects.
In this context, the preaching and the guidance of revered sages and saints are

quite clear. They emphatically preach that Man must turn towards devotion and worship
of formless God, after practising for some time in the preliminary stages, worship of God

in the form of idol or any other type of ritual worship. The essence of scriptures as well
as quotations of renowned saints in this context as stated here are very instructive. The

scriptures states,"Worship God realising the truth that you and God are basically one by

nature.''

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