Idols in gold, silver and bronze, decoration with flowers, fruits and more. Offerings and articles all carefully chosen and elaborately arranged. The ritual itself done with much focus and fervour. Such and more is the way we worship with all our riches. As we get wealthier so too our altars of worship and images of God at home. The representative image of God is indeed given much attention. Much is spent in its worship. Our approach is more like – “Let me do all that I can”.
A hungry man by the wayside, a person seeking alms at a traffic signal, forwards on WhatsApp from trusted sources of friends and family, public appeals for the disaster and poverty stricken and such other. We encounter such situations and people very often. Our response is careful, caution ridden and generous as we think we are. Our approach broadly is to more like – “Let me do my bit”. The living expression of God seems to get much less from us than the representative image of God.
We tend to worship as if we are rich, and we tend to serve as if we are poor.
We tend to offer as much in worship of the Lord, but when it comes to service, the approach is more like ‘let me do my bit, let me do the minimum needed’.
The image of God in my altar gets fruits and flowers on silver plates.
The living expression of God gets alms and food in either bare hands or earthen or aluminium bowls.
The image of God gets the finest sweets and delicacies.
The living expression of God gets the bare minimum within our individual generosity limits.
Instead, could we do the opposite?
Worship as if we were poor and serve as if we were rich.
Worship like the way a poorest man would and serve with all our wealth.
The God at the door asking for alms, gets a few pennies, while the Image of God in the altar gets bountiful coins.
Ultimately we end up serving the same God. Then why more for His image and less for His living expression? We are doing by what makes us happy. But what makes God happy? Does he want plentiful for His image or for His living expression. Something for us to ponder and consider.
Can we reverse our approach ?
संस्कृतम् 
Sai Ram 🙏
How wonderfully explained the reality happening in our day to day lives. Much time, energy, resources and money set aside for the Very Lord who is the Giver of all these. The entire universe is His manifestation. Hinduism says, See God in everything that is created by the Creator. Human being is just a speck in His innumerable creations yet we as humans think we are the ultimate and try to dominate and rule and control everything else. It is absolutely a wasteful exercise if there’s no divinity in what we do. Serve All in humility and Love and God will manifest before us even before we invite Him with all the elaborate pomp and show.
Our humble Pranams At The Lotus Feet Of Swami.
Vatsala Shanker
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Superb thought, Manoj! Worth publishing his wider. Who knows, it may strike a chord where it needs to.
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Amazing Manoj! What a way for me to begin the day. Most of the times this chord struck me too when performing the rituals or attending spiritual gatherings. It is so important for us to understand that spirituality and God phenomenon is not theoretical but it’s practical.
Sooner we realise this truth and apply it in our lives, better for us and for the whole of humanity.
Thanks alot once again.
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Just another thought…. What if the idols were actually consuming and utilizing what is kept in front of them, would we humans have offered the same?! We offer what we want to consume!!!!!
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Hari om .after going through this msg l remember Swamy Vivekananda saying same thing to the whole world .l agree with your msg very much.l am lucky to read this msg.God bless you.
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