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Being raised in a Hindu family, I was brought up worshipping many idols of God. Along with it, there was, and still is a ritual of non-idol worshipping in our family: “Yagya/Hawan”. Most of the time, other than the daily “Vedic” prayers my childhood spent participating in “Yagya/ Hawan” for special occasions at home. Back home, we have a perfect environment of worshipping both impersonal and personal God.

While participating in Yagya and listening to the “Vedic mantras” from my mother, the question always hovered in my mind: If God is impersonal then why do we pray personages?  What is the reason behind supporting both idol and non-idol worshipping in our religion?

I think I haven’t paid a lot of attention to this curiosity in my childhood, and I procrastinated finding answers to these questions; until recently I started reading a book from one of the greatest men on our land or I won’t be exaggerating if I say one of the most distinguished philosophers, visionary, sagacious, perspicacious, and eminent person we had on this planet: Swami Vivekanand. In one of his delivered lectures in the late 19^th century, he meticulously explained the question I pointed out above. I am thrilled to share this with you all.

Before I come to the point, let’s discuss a little about the scriptures. Broadly we have divided our scriptures into 2 categories. Those are:

• Shruti: “The Vedas”. It deals with the nature of the soul, God, and explains the relationship between the soul and God. The musical patterns in Veda have been derived from the vibrations of the cosmos. All that is essential is defined in Vedas. Nothing more is required. The ultimate truth is there. There are guidance, and teachings written which if followed could lead to salvation, the meeting with the transcendental truth, and the ultimate perfection. In Shrutis, personalities are not significant. These are not written by any author, in fact, this knowledge and truth were attained by going into a highly meditative or enlightened state by the sages. This knowledge was then transferred from sages to their disciples by remembering in mind. Later those were recorded.

• Smriti: “Purana”, “Manusmriti”, “Yog Samhita by Yagyavalkya”, “Historical books: Ramayan, Mahabharat”, “Darshan Shastra: Sankhya, Yoga, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa, etc.”, and many other ancient scriptures were written by writers from time to time. As explained above, Shruti explains the framework of the ultimate reality and destiny, but the details were left to be worked out. Those details were explained in the Smritis. The writers of Smritis explained these details to the best of their knowledge, and their experiences. Distinctive from Shruti, in Smritis, personalities are significant and impactful, remarkably noticeable. A lot of stories explained in those scriptures demonstrated the strength of personages with such an enormity that it is almost impossible to even think of a regular human to attain that power.

For Shruti and Smriti, the general rule and guideline are that if any time anything explained in Smriti contradicts what Shruti explains then Shruti should always be prioritized, it should always be triumphed.

The foundation of our religion is based on “Veda”. The Vedantic religion doesn’t require any personal authority. It teaches principles and guidelines. It doesn’t teach people. That is the reason for its eternity! Absolutely! I was captivated reading his lecture. I was enthralled to understand that a religion that is based on principles and not the person is undoubtedly eternal. Why?

Simple answer: If its foundation is based on the person, then sooner or later human mind would start asking questions about their historical pieces of evidence. And we may or may not be able to find it and thus the foundation would become debilitated.

Now let’s come to my initial curiosity. It’s evident that Vedantic Religion is impersonal so why do we pray to personages?

Indeed, the Vedantic religion doesn’t require any personages or any idol worship. But it has been observed by our sages that to most people it is difficult to understand the ultimate truth and teachings until it comes from authority. And therefore, they concluded there is a requirement of personages in which mankind can put their faith in and learn what the Vedas try to teach. It was thought that if not advised, humankind could start creating their own imaginary God in their mind who may or may not be leading them to the right values/ right path to the ultimate perfection.

Thus, our sages suggested we start worshipping personal Gods. Instead of worshipping an imaginary God (who may or may not be worthy), worshipping the God who could be ideal, who could manifest the spiritual power, the fearless one, has a purity of heart, perseveres in acquiring wisdom and knowledge,  pursues the self-discipline, has free soul, is peaceful, truthful, patient, kind, compassionate, gentle, modest, forgiving to all the creatures, free from hatred, detached, would be helpful to humankind to attain the limitless, unbounded, impersonal truth and help to understand the ultimate transcendental destination.

One of the beautiful verses from the Gita delineates the universality of the Vedantic religion. From the Gita Chapter 10 verse 41:

yad yad vibhūtimat sattvaṁ śhrīmad ūrjitam eva vā

tat tad evāvagachchha tvaṁ mama tejo ’nśha-sambhavam

यद्यद्विभूतिमत्सत्त्वं श्रीमदूर्जितमेव वा |
तत्देवावगच्छ त्वं मम तेजोंऽशसम्भवम् ||

It means whatever glorious, beautiful, mighty being exists anywhere, know that it has sprung from but a spark of “My splendor”.

What a marvelous global, universal verse isn’t it!!! It clearly means that if there is any extraordinary or glorious existence whether it be in the mortal world or spiritual world, consider that manifestation is coming from the ultimate supreme one!

This verse in particular describes liberty, the freedom of believing in any personal God. If there are remarkable personalities/ “Mahapurush”/incarnations/ super souls, who have those exceptional qualities that could help us reach the ultimate reality then it doesn’t matter if they belong to Christianity/ Islam/Buddhism/Jainism or any other religion around the globe. We can worship any sage/ saint/super soul from any country around the world.

That’s why Swami Vivekananda said our religion is a universal religion! All the ideals and all the paragons around the world can be included and would be embraced by our magnificent and impeccable Vedantic religion.

Thanks

Mridulika