Recently, I was having a WhatsApp chat with one of my learned elder cousin brothers where a discussion on idol worship came up.
He was mentioning about some 'Learned Lectures' inside temple premises like "the deity worshipped in the temple is an idol or just a stone which is meant to help achieve the ultimate goal of 'Self Realization' and has to be dispensed with thereafter since a self realized person becomes God Himself".
Some questions arise.
If the deities worshipped in the temple were farce,
How could Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa & Jayadeva be divine?
And how at all did Sri Adi-Sankara establish so many temples in Kerala and some in the North like Badrinath, Kedarnath?
That the Bhagavad Gita talks about detachment is well known. Whether we still require the bridge after we crossed the river is to be pondered. (Unless of course we plan to return the same route).
Some need the bridge and some not. Those who don't become the Padmapaada - the one who crossed the river without the bridge. (Adi-Sankara's disciple Sanandana, crossed a river by walking over it keeping the foot over lotus flowers and hence became known as Padmapaada)
Certainly those who use the bridge also cross the river and reach the same place where the ones who don't use it to cross. While some get happiness by using the bridge, other 'acrobats' would go without it and they too enjoy the ride to the destination.
Neither is therefore wrong. One might be more safer though slower; while the other faster but riskier.
Verily, speed is not to be counted in this case of pursuit of moksha.
Maharishi Ramana once asked Sree Narayana Guru: "Isn't it time yet that you shun the stone?"
He replied:"I don't carry it"
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