Answers to the questions!

STATUTORY WARNING!!!!
I have posted the upanishads which give good explantion of the answers that i am going to explain. It is mandatory to read them and then read the answers given below to get better understanding.
I have tried to answer in the language and analogy that is close to me. Everyone can have their own understanding and mental perception. This is also one reason why god has many forms. It is always good to derive your meaning and make up your own dictionary from the scriptures(vedas and upanishads) and puranas.




Posted by (Priya).....why then we all worship different forms of god. in this kali yuga which form is the best to worship?
why did chandrashekara sarawathi swamigal worship ambal and murugan also?? is it necessary that you stick to some form alone as people like me like worship murugar, pillayar sivan and perumal..meaning to ask if its okay??


I am taking one question at a time.

Q 1. why then we all worship different forms of god. in this kali yuga which form is the best to worship?

God is Atman or the enlivening principle.It is formless,tasteless,senseless,emotionless,angerless,desireless.It is absolute.
It is pure.It is infinite.
We cannot represent the infinite through finite forms.

We need to understand a few things here.
Who are we?
Ans: We are the manifestation or reflection of that Brahman itself. How can this be possible? Then , are we not god? The answer is again in the answer to the next question.
What are we made up of?
What we see is the physical body.we have mind. we have intellect.
So we are made up of these three constituents in a broad sense.
But when we dig deeper. What we see is the following.The picture below depicts the scenario.




This means that the following equation is TRUE:
MAN - DESIRES= GOD

If you look at the picture there are the following basic constituents:
1. PHYSICAL BODY
2. CAUSAL BODY
3. SUTLE BODY
4. ATMAN/BRAHMAN

1. PHYSICAL BODY: This constitutes the outer annamaya kosha or the sheath of food or the gross body which is seen by everyone.

2. CAUSAL BODY: This constitutes the inner mind , intellect that a human being posseses. That is the mind (full of thoughts, decisions, images of likes and dislikes, emotions, lust etc), intellect ( which is the power of discrimination by which we decide what is wrong and right and distinguish good and evil).

3.SUTLE BODY: This constitues desires and desires only. There are three types.
SANCHITA VASANA, PRARABHDA VASANA, AGAMI VASANA.

SANCHITA VASANA: Total superset of all desires that has lead you to take birth in this human form. If all these are satiated or satisfied or exhausted through knowledge and experience then we become merged with ATMAN because without desires we are GOD himeself.
PRARABHDA VASANA: This is the subset of sanchita vasana that we are born with. We come into this world with certain amount of desires. That is the reason some person is a lawyer, or musician or an engineer.We try to take birth again and again to exhaust all the vasanas.
AGAMI VASANA:
The balance from the superset that is yet to come.This is will lead us into more births and deaths.
Now having known this let us understand little more deeper.



What happens if we die?
Our CAUSAL BODY and SUTLE BODY transmigrate from the current environment and move to a suitable environment where it can continue to exhaust the enitre set of sanchita vasana's.


The ATMAN:
It is all pervading, imperishable. so it remains where it was and is always present now and will be present in the future too. it never dies.
It is like electricity in a tubelight. the body of the tube light is destroyed if it is not working, but electricity is not!.
The body takes different forms like neon lights, candescent lamps etc to give a different apperance , to satisfy a specific customer or audience but electricity remains the same everywhere.

But now in order to understand electricity we should be able to see the electron flow. Can we see it through our naked eye?
No, we take a wire and pass electricity through it,light a lamp then we see the lamp burning. This is the manifestation of electricity in the form of heat and light.

Similarly we represent god through different idols. It is symbolism.
We need to reach the unknown through the known knowledge we have.
We did not know that electrons where the cause of flow electricity by birth. we came to know about it through experiments conducted using known equipments.

So, we use the idol to reach the ideal!
We have to be an introvert to understand what is hidden beneath us.
All gods and goddesses represent different manifestations of the great ATMAN / BRAHMAN.
Just like electricity can be produced anywhere, we can see god any where. But there has to be a source which generates it. These temples where idols are established are considered the sources of GOD where we can feel the vibrations. Just like when go to a power station we find a lot of sound generated and a lot wires distributing everwhere.

This temple like structure also represents the same.
1. It tells that the atman is in the centre(Garbhagraha) or inner sanctum.

2.The outer sheath is the sutle body or outer ring (praharam) where we take pradarshana near the garbaghraha.

3.Then we have causal body that is represented by the outer most ring for pradarshana (outer praharam).

4.Then comes the outer surrounding that is near the temple fence which represents the physical body.

So we can have different forms of gods and goddesses as we please! .Just like there are many power houses in different states, we have different temples in different states serving the same purpose of helping people understand the BRAHMAN and making them go towards the ideal.Which ever is suitable in making us undertand the ideal, which ever helps us concentrate on the ideal, which ever helps us to control the body,mind and intellect , we can use that representation and reach the ideal.That is our ultimate goal in life.

The beauty of the temple is that it helps the individual perform all the three yogas(karma yoga, bhakthi yoga and gyana yoga).
KARMA YOGA through service. BHAKTI YOGA through songs and rituals, GYANA YOGA through recital and discussion of scriptures and puranas. It suites all types of temperaments of people and hence the people find peace when they visit the temple.

In this kali yuga (nama sankerthanam) is regarded the best.

Q2. why did chandrashekara sarawathi swamigal worship ambal and murugan also?? is it necessary that you stick to some form alone as people like me like worship murugar, pillayar sivan and perumal..meaning to ask if its okay??

As i explained above he has chosen those forms to help him in reaching the ideal. You can have your own.
But always remember that without the enlivening principle nothing can exist.
Keep looking deeper and deeper into yourself. you will reach the ideal one day.
I am also in the same persuit.


Hope to reach the goal.....