"PRAKRUTHA BHAKTI - IDOL WORSHIP"

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"Examples, Illustrations, comparisons, and stories are often used in the Upanisads to explain to us the Inexplicable":-

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1. In a sense, illustrations( pictures) are employed in Vedanta to serve as Idols (Vigraha or Bhimbam)  in Bhakti margam.

2. No piece of stone in any Temple can provide for the devotee his life's goal of achieving happiness and peace.

3. But without  an Idol Self-improvement is not possible.

4. Idol is the means ; self-discovery is the goal.

5. You should not confuse the means with the goal, it will lead to sorrow.

6. The Idol serves the spiritual aspirant as a spring-board to heave himself out of Samsara and plunge into himself.

7. The Super-Conscious State, otherwise called the State of God-Consciousness, is reached when a devotee through self-surrender or through full discrimination dissociates himself from his false ego-dream and comes to establish himself in the true conviction that he is the Atma.    

 

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