Concerning idolatry

The old Buddhist monk woman not only worships with eagerness, but actually she worships something, which couldn’t see her, hear her or help her –an idol. She even didn’t realize that she violated the first two God’s commandments. Hundreds of millions of people in India are in her situation of ignorance and idolatry. For example, Calcutta got its name from the goddess of death Kali. That’s why it is not strange, that this city is one of the poorest, dirty, miserable and depressive places in the World. Every day millions of Hindus stay in front of Kali’s statues (which is usually a human figure with many arms, and at her waist she has a chain with skulls of her enemies) with fear in their hearts and gifts in their hands, used to let the goddess to give mercy. Wherever we go in India, we saw this sin.

One day I traveled by train from Lucknow to Delhi and I went to the train station to buy a ticket. There were few people before me waiting, and I have enough time to watch the ticket-office, where few Indian sellers were working. There was a special place, made to be shrine at the one of the angles. An idol was set and in front of it was burning incense which is usually used for such purpose. Its smell can be felt everywhere in India - from the airport to the poorest house. The clerk, who was selling the tickets stood up (seems his working time was over), went to the idol and worshiped, then left out. And at his place another clerk came. Before beginning of the job, he also went to the idol, worshiped and then began working.

Other time we traveled by taxi. At backward mirror in front of the driver was hung a small idol and in the car also incense could be smelled.

In polytheism (faith in many gods) is set up the doctrine saying that every god has its own territory or sphere of influence in human life and nature. For example in India, there is a god of prosperity, god of knowledge, god defender, god creator, god destroyer, mountain god, river god, god of fields, etc. until 330 million. Our God explicitly has forbidden every kind of idolatry and making idols, not only because it cruelly hurts God’s heart, because He is unseen and no image cannot describe Him as He is, but also for our own benefit. The idol is not just well made wooden or stone statue, but behind it stay real persons - demons. When someone worships idol, no matter realizing or not, he actually worships demons.

Few thousand years ago, when polytheism has developing very fast, every tribe had a priest or witch-doctor, who was like a connection between the tribe and the gods the tribe believed. Falling in trance, the priest really was obsessed by the demons he served. Later the same demons he has seen and has concerned to be gods were accepted seen forms of idols. That’s why many of the idols have strange forms like: human body with many arms (god Shiva), with terrible image of face (goddess Kali), semi-elephant – semi-human (god Ganesh), - in other words, images that human imagination cannot create.

People worshiping idols are unhappy. They live in constant fear, because their gods are often very pervasive. Indians wake up and go to bed thinking about their gods, and maybe there isn’t more religious country than India. If we can describe pilgrim’s life with only one word, it is the word “fear”- fear of idols and fear of society where they live, because society curses everyone who break the tradition and turning to Real God. Their outside ritual of worship in front of the idols is something that can be compared with the drugs for the drug-addicted. Worshiping these statues, their peace is restored for a while, but soon they are against in front of the idol for the next portion worship and the next portion soul peace. That’s why in India the religion is mixed so much in Indian’s daily life.

Our staying in Dharamsala was very useful. There I saw India from another point of view. By our visiting in the Buddhist temple, God actually showed me what means to live in spiritual darkness.

We went back in Buntar and continue our daily works - intercession and spiritual warfare, getting know local Indian’s culture and customs.

Up