Surrendering to God, The Way to Joy & Bliss! - Bhagavat Gita

Many of us do Prayer sometimes, some do it daily. We all do get some peace of mind & happiness while doing Prayer. Later on when we get involved in our daily chorus, all tensions of life again surround us. Little peace that we get during prayer is lost when we experience tensions of our job. How can it be that our mind remains at peace & in a happy state of mind always?

To be at peace with yourself & be happy all the times, you need to surrender your ego to the God completely. We need to be in constant remembrance of God. We need to take complete refuge in God by surrendering our ego at the feet of God. By complete surrender to God we do get freedom from all our sins and sorrows. In God there is no sin or sorrow. God is like the Sun in which darkness cannot exist. God is complete Joy, complete Bliss. When we are surrendering our ego to God, then we are surrendering ourselves to Joy & Bliss.

Whenever our ego separates ourselves from God, we become sad & unhappy & all tensions of life surround us. In any case we should not be egoistic, as to be egoistic is to show our separate existence from God, separate existence from Joy & Bliss. When the subtle veil of ego is torn between you & God then you are full of Joy & happiness. Just think yourself to be an instrument of God & devote fully to God.

So do Complete Surrender to God, as in this way you shall be free of all tensions of life & shall be at peace & be happy during all walks of life. Below verse of Bhagwat Gita teaches the same.

"sarva-dharman parityajya
mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo
mokshayisyami ma suchah" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Eighteen verse 66)


"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, Surrender unto Me alone. By surrendering all duties to Me, seek refuge in Me. I shall absolve you of all sins; grieve not."


Reasons behind Idol Worship in Hindu way of Life

A Guru Shishya Conversation!


Though Hindu way of life doesn't support idol worship but with time it has been embraced by all and with reasons too. Primitive man makes a scrawl of a head on wall and calls it God. Civilized man shuts his eyes and imagines an image and calls it God. Both are idols. The difference is not one of kind but only of degree. Hinduism has the courage to say so. It also has the humanity to admit within its fold even those who cannot rise above grossly concrete representations of God. A common illiterate labourer and an intellectual scholar require different concepts of God to satisfy them. So Hinduism declares that each can worship God in whatever form that suits his competence and stage of spiritual evolution.

Since the common mind of man cannot comprehend the abstractness and transcendence of the nameless and formless version of God, different idols and images enter the picture. Though these myriad images and idols may appear to be only symbols each of them points to the Supreme Power inherent in everybody and it is that One God who is worshipped in the form of idols and images. We are worshipping God in the idol and not the idol as God. This fundamental point in the practice of idol worship is the most important lesson to be learnt about Hinduism. So long as you think it is an idol you have not got it. People who do not believe in God propose excuses to find fault with the worship of God through idols and appear to be 'more loyal' than the religious, by putting forth the argument that God is formless and so should not be worshipped through idols. God can take any form and so the form of the idol is good enough for us to worship God.

QUESTION: Is the idol or icon of a deity itself the deity?

The deity is not just an idol or icon; it is that which has been invoked by mantras in the image. An idol, by constant worship through Mantras culled from the scriptures, becomes actually the very deity which has been invoked into the physical frame, by Mantra-chanting.

QUESTION: A flag is just a symbol for the nation; it is not the Nation. Does it not mean then that an idol of a deity is also only a representation and not the 'real thing'? But the Hindu tradition of giving absolute sanctity to temples and icons seems to point to the view that the icons themselves are the deities.

The answer to this question has to be carefully absorbed. In Hinduism the same question may have different answers to different levels of questioners. From the point of view that there is only one absolute Truth and everything else is only a manifestation of that Truth, an icon is only a representation and not the 'real thing'. But from the point of view of a devotee who needs to worship Divinity in name and form, the images and icons which have been sanctified by the various mantras and rituals are themselves the deities that have as much power as the Absolute. So hosts of such sanctified 'images and idols' should not be cast into the role of just a 'representation' of the Absolute as a flag for the army.  It is with this orientation that every devotee approaches a temple and worships the deity in the temple. In the beginning his attitude is to assume that the God is in the idol. But the God is certainly everywhere and so, in due time, the devotee, by the Lord's Grace, realises that his assumption that the God is in the idol, is actually a truism. Thus, what starts as an attitude or assumption, even though one may not have a belief, results in the realisation of the truth and this is far more than just belief or faith. This is the esoteric significance of idol worship. The millions of devotees who have benefited by such worship over the centuries both in their personal homes and in public temples constitute the unique testimony for the validity of this significance. The flag example is only an incomplete example.


Thus you see, Hindu way of life, its way of thinking, is broad enough to admit within its fold even those ordinary mortals who are yet to mature spiritually, above the grossly concrete representations of God. In fact the religion goes even one step further. It says, in essence, each individual can worship God in whatever form that suits his competence, taste, and stage of spiritual evolution. The strength of Hinduism, writes Monier-Williams, lies in its infinite adaptability to the infinite diversity of human character and human tendencies. It has its highly spiritual and abstract side suited to the philosopher, its practical and concrete side congenial to the man of the world, its aesthetic and ceremonial side attuned to the man of the poetic feeling and imagination and its quiescent contemplative aspect that has its appeal for the man of peace and the lover of seclusion.

The Absolute Brahman, in relation to the material universe, is called Ishvara. When we refer to Ishvara in His creative aspect, we call Him Brahma; when we refer to His aspect of sustainer and protector, we call Him Vishnu; and when we think of Him in His destructive and dissolution aspect, we refer to Him as Shiva. In each case the power or energy of the aspect is referred to as the corresponding Goddess. Just as sunlight is inseparable from the sun, so also is the power (shakti) of Ishvara inseparable from Ishvara and India naturally worships this power as Shakti, the Mother of the Universe.

QUESTION: But the practice of deity worship through idols and images seems to throw to the winds the majestic concept of Impersonality so emphatically asserted in the Upanishads. How can this be explained?


It must be admitted that all worship is image worship. Primitive man made a scrawl of a head on a rock and called it God. Civilized man shuts his eyes and imagines an anthropomorphic image with arms and legs and calls it God. Both are images. The difference is not one of kind but of degree. Hinduism has the courage to say so and also has the humanity to admit within its fold even those who cannot rise above grossly concrete representations of God. An illiterate commoner and an intellectual scholar require different concepts of God or Divinity to satisfy them. So Hinduism declares that each can worship Divinity in whatever form that suits the competence and stage of spiritual evolution of the worshipper.


Lord Shiva, the Adi Yoga Guru!

ॐ नमः शिवाय


When we talk about Yoga, Lord Shiva is considered the Adi Yogi. He is referred to as the Adi Guru because it is from him that Yoga got down to us. He is the foremost among the yogis and the first teacher of the science of Yoga. Lord is both, an ideal renouncer and also an ideal householder. He is depicted as sitting in lotus pose on mount Kailas, in deep Samadhi. The crescent moon on his head symbolizes mystical vision and knowledge while the serpent coiled around his neck symbolizes the mysterious kundalini energy present in all of us. River Ganges flows down from the crown of his head symbolizing perpetual purification that he bestows upon his devotees. He is the three-eyed one or Trilochana, the third eye or the eye of wisdom in the centre of the forehead. He is described as the “blue-throated” or Neelakanta as he drank the poison which came out during ocean churning to save this world. His trident represents the three gunas, namely tamas, rajas, and sattva.

Lord Shiva is aptly called as Yogeshwara, the lord of Yoga; Maheshwara, the Great God and Bhuteshwara, the lord of the five elements from which the universe is created.


It is said that Shiva first imparted his knowledge of Yoga to Parvati or Shakti, his consort. Also, for the good of mankind, he taught the science of Yoga to the ancient rishis who passed on this knowledge to the rest of humanity. This passing of knowledge is supposed to have taken place at the base of Kailash itself on the banks of Manasarovar Lake. All yogic and tantric systems consider him as the first Guru. These teachings by Lord Shiva have come down to us in the form of “Agama Sastras”. From these teachings, came various traditions which still exist. One of them is the Nava-Nath Tradition founded by Matsyendranath, Gorakshnath and the seven other Gurus of the Nath Tradition, which is still prevalent mostly in North India. In the South, it was the Siddha Agastya Muni, who disseminated this knowledge and created a lineage of Siddhas who specialized in Yoga, Tantra, Medicine, Astrology and other sciences.

In his teachings, Lord Shiva does not give any philosophical explanations, but instead gives very direct instructions on the methods to liberation. Shiva Sutras and Vigyana Bhairava Tantra are popular texts that contain specific techniques to liberate the embodied soul and experience his true blissful nature. These techniques got refined over the centuries through various masters, who perfected this art and then taught it their disciples. Thus a Guru-disciple tradition was developed and the wisdom of yoga was passed on through the ages.

Lord Shiva is worshipped both in his form or formless aspect. The Shiva described with form is worshiped as a powerful deity and a whole system of rituals have developed around it. He is one of the gods of the Trinity. Shiva as a God represents the destructive aspect of the Supreme reality, Brahman.

On the other hand, Shiva as formless is worshipped as the Siva Linga and is considered the ultimate reality itself. Even though the formless cannot be given a form, the oval shaped Shiva Linga is said to the first form taken during creation. Shiva is considered the supreme consciousness in which the play of creation happens in the form of Shakti. Shiva and Shakti are inseparable, just as the creation cannot be separated from the creator. The whole of creation is described as Shiva Tandava or the dance of Shiva.

Our Prostrations to the formless One, who has taken a form out of Compassion!