Gahre Pani Paith #4

Dr. Frank Rudolph devoted his entire life to researching a very unusual process. If I say a little about that process, understanding idol worship will become easier.

All over the earth, tribal and so-called “primitive” peoples have long known a small but striking experiment. News of it occasionally reaches the so-called civilized. Dr. Rudolph spent his life on it, and the conclusions he reached are astonishing.

Among many tribes there is a custom: by making a clay effigy of a person, one can transmit to that person a specific illness—and not only illness, even death. Dr. Frank Rudolph spent thirty years investigating: Is there any truth in this? Can a clay figure be made of someone and a disease be sent to them—or even death?

With a deeply skeptical, scientific mind, he lived for years among Amazonian tribes. He was thrown into great difficulty, because he saw the events happen hundreds of times before his eyes. Even if the person was thousands of miles away, by making a clay effigy one could transmit a particular disease to them, even death! Years of study established that the phenomenon occurs. But how? What is the secret behind it? What is the process?

Rudolph writes that he could verify three things experimentally regarding the process. First, the clay figure need not be an exact likeness. That is difficult—nearly impossible. What is important is not resemblance, but the ability to install the person’s image into that figure. A simple person’s mud doll will only be a symbol—head, limbs, a rough sign. But if the practitioner can close his eyes, hold the person’s image in full detail in the mind, and superimpose it upon the clay figure, then that figure becomes an active symbol of that person. There is also a method to “charge” it.

Earlier I mentioned the tilak between the eyebrows: yoga concludes that between your two eyes lies the potential of the “third eye.” That third eye holds great commanding power, a powerful transmission center.

Tell your son or your servant to do something—if he refuses, try a small experiment. Focus your attention between your eyebrows and, from that center, tell him to do it. You will find that nine times out of ten refusal becomes almost impossible. Reverse it: do not center attention there, and nine out of ten times refusal becomes possible.

Anything projected while your attention is concentrated between the eyebrows goes forth not with ordinary force but with extraordinary potency. If, keeping someone’s image in mind and a small clay figure before you, you throw a command from the ajna chakra onto that moist lump of clay, it is no longer ordinary clay—it becomes infected and charged with your command. If, focusing on the figure between its eyes, you hold the memory of any particular illness for just one minute, that person will become infected with that illness. Distance does not matter. Even death can occur.

After a lifetime of study Rudolph wrote: It sounded unbelievable, but when I witnessed the experiments I was stunned! They would fashion the effigy of a tree and force the living tree before them to wither. Leaves would droop on a tree still green and vibrant; within a month it would dry and die—though they watered it, prevented any outward harm. If this can happen to a tree, it can happen to a person.

I bring in Rudolph’s process because idol worship—murti-puja—is the same process applied on a vast scale. If we can make someone sick or bring death, why should we not be able to re-establish contact with those who have gone beyond death? And why not use the murti as a springboard to approach the cosmic that pervades this universe?

The entire basis of idol worship is this: there is a relationship between your brain and the cosmic mind. To connect the two, a bridge is needed. You are already related; a bridge is all that’s needed. That bridge can be constructed—and the experiment of its construction is the murti. Naturally the bridge must be “embodied,” because you cannot relate directly to the formless. You have no clue to the formless. People speak of the formless, the nirakar, but talk remains talk; you have no feel for it.

All your mind’s experiences are of form, of shape. You have no experience of the formless. Where there is no experience, no word can really evoke a remembrance. You may go on speaking of the formless, but you live amidst forms. If even with the formless a relationship is to be established, something must be created that is form on one side and formless on the other. This is the secret of the murti.

Let me put it again: we need a bridge whose end on our side is form, but which, on the side of the divine, dissolves into the formless. Where we stand, one end must be visible; where God is, the other end vanishes into the invisible. If the murti remains only form, no bridge; if it is only formless, still no bridge. The murti has to do a double work: from our side it must appear; from the divine side it must disappear.

That is why the very phrase “idol worship” is remarkable—and I will give it a meaning you may never have considered. If I said the phrase is wrong, you would be troubled. But truly, the phrase idol worship is entirely wrong. Why? Because for one who knows worship, the idol dissolves. For one who knows worship, the idol disappears; for whom the idol remains, worship has never happened. The phrase uses two words—idol and worship—which never coexist in the same experience. “Idol” belongs to those who have never worshiped; “worship” belongs to those who have never seen an idol.

Put otherwise: worship is the art of dissolving the idol. Worship is the art of melting form. You keep erasing the “formed” aspect until, in a little while, it becomes formless. Worship begins from the visible end; once it takes hold of the seeker, the visible end vanishes and the formless is revealed.

“Iidol-worship” is self-contradictory. Hence the worshiper is surprised: “Where is the idol?” And the non-worshiper says: “What will come of keeping a stone?” Two different kinds of experiences that never meet—and so the world has suffered much.

Pass by a temple, and you will see the idol, because to pass by worship is not easy. You say, “What can these stone images do?” But the Meera within that temple, absorbed in devotion—there no idol remains. Worship happens, the idol bids farewell. The idol is only the beginning; as soon as worship begins, it is lost.

It appears to us because we know nothing of worship. The less worship there is in the world, the more idols will be seen. And when idols abound and worship dwindles, idols will have to be removed; what will you do with stones? People think the more primitive the man, the more idolatrous; the more intelligent, the more he abandons idols. This is not true. Worship has its own science. The more unfamiliar we become with it, the more difficult everything becomes.

Another point: it is a delusion that man has evolved in all directions. Life is so vast that if you develop in one area, you may remain backward in another. If today science is highly developed, in matters of religion we have lagged far behind. When religion flourishes, science may lag. Learn one dimension; forget another.

In 1880 the Altamira caves were found in Europe. They hold paintings twenty thousand years old—the colors as fresh as if painted last evening. Don Marcelino, who discovered them, was defamed; artists suspected forgery—how could such fresh color be ancient? They had reason: Van Gogh’s paintings are not yet a hundred years old, yet many have faded. Picasso’s early canvases aged as he aged. Today’s pigments rarely last more than a century.

When the Altamira findings were firmly established as twenty thousand years old, it became a problem. Those who made such colors were more advanced than we are—in the making of color. We can reach the moon, yet we cannot produce pigments that last beyond a century. Those people knew an alchemy unknown to us.

Egypt’s mummies are ten thousand years old—bodies preserved as if laid yesterday. To this day we do not know which chemicals kept them intact. Scientists say they look as if the person died yesterday; there is no deterioration. We have not discovered the substances used.

And the stones hoisted atop the pyramids—there is no crane today that can lift and place them as they did. It is unlikely they had cranes. They must have had other techniques we cannot imagine.

Truths of life are multidimensional. The same end can be reached by many methods. Life is so vast that when we pursue one direction, we forget others.

Very advanced people created the murti. Reflect: the murti is a bridge to the cosmic force that surrounds us. Those who developed it had built a bridge toward the ultimate mystery of life.

We say we discovered electricity; surely we are more “civilized” than those who did not. We found radio waves, transmitting news in moments—more advanced than those who could only shout a furlong or two. But those who found a bridge to the supreme principle of life—before them we are children. Our electricity, our radio—these are toys. The art of linking with the ultimate was the fruit of concentrated labor in one great direction.

The purpose of the murti is: on our side, human side, it has form—and through that form, a doorway opens that leads into the formless. Like a window in my house: the house is form; the window is form. But open it and you enter the formless sky. If I tell someone I gaze at the formless through a small window, he may call it madness: “Through such a small opening how can you see the limitless?” His argument is logical—if he has never looked through a window into the sky. It will be hard to convince him. But a small window can open onto the boundless. The window imposes no limitation on that which it opens to.

The murti imposes no limitation on the formless; it simply becomes a doorway. Those who thought the murti obstructs the formless created great foolishness. And those who thought that by breaking the window they would break the sky—these are the thoroughly insane! To think one can “destroy” the formless by destroying the form is beyond madness. But such iconoclasm arises when the alchemy of worship is unknown.

Second: worship is subjective, inner, intimate; it cannot be exhibited. Whatever is inner has no outer display. Cut open my heart—you will not find love, anger, hatred, forgiveness, compassion. You will find lungs pumping air. If doctors, after examination on the operating table, certify: “This man has never known love or hate; inside there is nothing but a pump for air,” how will I prove I have loved? Will those doctors accept my word?

They may only say: “You must have been deluded—an illusion.” I might ask, “Have you never felt love or hate?” If they are logical, they will say: “We too have had such illusions.” But facts on the table are “real.” The heart as love, they do not find.

Open an eye—no instrument reveals the dreams it has seen. Even if you dismantle the entire apparatus of vision and lay it out, you will never discover whether that eye saw dreams in the night. Yet we have all dreamt. Even an “untrue” dream is an event that happened within; we awaken with pounding heart, tears on the cheeks. The dream has no location in the dissected eye. It is subjective—no external display.

The murti is visible—like the eye or the lung. Worship is invisible—like love or dream. Thus, as you pass a temple, you only see the murti; worship is never seen. And if you see Meera dancing before an image, you think she is mad—because you cannot see the worship.

When Ramakrishna first served as priest at Dakshineshwar, within days rumors spread in Calcutta. People petitioned the trustees: “Remove this man. We have heard he first smells the flowers and then offers them, he tastes the food before placing it before the deity—this corrupts worship!”

The committee called him: “What are you doing? You sniff the flowers first? You taste the offerings first?” Ramakrishna said: “Yes. I saw my mother—she cooked and tasted first before feeding me, to be sure it was fit for me. Without tasting, how can I offer? How can I place a flower unless I know it is fragrant?”

They said: “But this breaks the rules.” Ramakrishna: “What rules? Does love have rules? Does worship have a constitution? Where there are rules, worship dies; where methods dominate, love dies. Worship is an inner upsurge—deeply private, deeply individual. And yet it has a universal core that can be recognized.”

Two lovers both love—each in their own way, yet with a common essence. Individuality remains; a single spirit pervades both.

But worship will not be seen; the murti will. We have coined a phrase “idol worship” which is utterly wrong. Worship is the art of dissolving the idol! Strange indeed. The devotee first makes the idol, and then he dissolves it—made of clay outwardly, dissolved in the supreme inwardly.

For this reason, for thousands of years in this land we have made murtis and immersed them. Even now we craft and immerse. Many ask me: “Such a beautiful image of Kali—and then you sink it in water! You install Ganesh with such love, and then you drown him! Sheer madness!” But a great insight lies behind immersion.

The secret of worship is precisely this: create and dissolve. Build the form here, and erase it into the formless. The image is only a symbol. We make Kali, worship, and then consign her to the river.

Today immersion pains us—because the essential work did not happen in between. If worship had truly happened, the heart would already have immersed the murti into the divine. Then, when we carry it to the river, it is like a spent cartridge—its work done, nothing remains inside. But today, when you immerse, it is a loaded cartridge—never fired. Pain is natural.

Those who immersed after twenty-one days had already “fired” the cartridge. Worship is immersion. The murti is the starting-point on our side; worship is the method by which we move beyond. Whoever stops at the murti has not known worship; whoever travels on the path of worship recognizes the murti.

What are the fundamental principles behind the murti, its use, and worship?

First: for taking a leap into the supreme truth or supreme energy, you do not need a “place,” but you need a footing to leap from. The ocean is infinite, but you will spring from a shore. You thank the shore from which you leapt into the infinite.

Logic asks: can we leap from form to formless? Krishnamurti would say, “No.” From word to wordlessness—how?

Yet every leap is from form to formless. Deep down the two are not opposites; form is an aspect of the formless. They appear divided because our vision is limited; in reality they are indivisible.

Standing on the shore, one sees two shores—this and that—separate. Enter the depths and discover: below, the shores are one. In scientific terms: the sea is saturated with silt, and the earth is saturated with water. Dig anywhere in the earth and water appears; dig in the sea and you get mud. The difference is of degrees, not of kind. Everything is joined.

So-called form is joined to the formless; the formless is joined to form. We stand in form. The murti begins from this truth: we are situated in form. Travel can begin only from where we are—not from where we “should” be.

Where are we? We live in the formed. All our experience is of form. We have known nothing unformed. We loved form, hated form; attached to form, detached from form; befriended and made enemies within form. The murti recognizes this truth. So if we are to travel toward the formless, we must first give the formless some form.

Naturally, such forms will be those toward which our love naturally moves. Someone experienced the formless through Mahavira, someone through Krishna, someone through Jesus. If one has seen the formless shine through Jesus—peered into his eyes and found the door opening to the vast sky; held his hand until the hand disappeared and the Infinite’s hand was in one’s hand; listened to his voice until the resonance beyond words rang in the heart—then to make a murti of Jesus and worship becomes the easiest leap into the formless.

It may be Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira—first it will reveal through someone. Remember this. The pure formless will not be seen at the outset—our capacity is not yet ready. The formless comes “bound” somewhere; that is the meaning of avatar: the bounded form of the formless, a window through which vastness can be glimpsed.

For one who has truly seen Buddha, upon seeing the murti the stone soon disappears and the living presence arises. For one who has loved him, it will not take long.

Therefore Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Christ left behind structures so that those who love them can reconnect. Form is a great structure. The art and science of making murtis is full of measured considerations. If the murti is made with such care, it yields deep results.

For example: look at many Buddhas. You will feel they are less “portraits of a person” and more portraits of a state of being. Thousands of Buddha images—less of a man, more of a state of mind. Meditate on them and a strange compassion surrounds you. The raised hand, the half-closed eyes, the proportions of the face, the posture—the whole composition connects you with compassion.

Someone asked the French painter Cézanne: “Why do you paint?” He said: “Because I seek a form for the feeling in my heart. If one contemplates the form rightly, one will arrive at the feeling I had.”

When you look at a painting, you usually see only lines and colors. But the psyche resonates to what it perceives. A set of skewed lines makes the mind skewed; a precise proportion tunes the mind to that proportion. The joy you feel before a flower is less the flower itself than the proportion of its petals. The beauty of a face resonates with the beauty within you. The ugly is the non-proportional—producing inner dissonance, disorder.

The dancer Nijinsky, who later committed suicide, had painted his entire dwelling—walls, floor, ceiling—in only two colors for his last two years: stark red and black. Those who entered said, “No one can live here long without going mad.” The entire environment was so chaotic that madness seemed inevitable.

Whatever you behold creates resonance within; in a deep sense you become like it. All Buddha images are constructed around compassion, because compassion is his inner message. Compassion is not ordinary love. Love comes and goes; compassion arrives and does not depart. In love there is an unconscious expectation to receive; in compassion one knows there is nothing to get—everyone is so poor. There is no demand; yet the heart opens and begins to share.

Buddha told his monks: “Meditate, worship, pray; but whatever peace you gain, distribute it instantly—do not keep it even for a moment. If you retain it, I will call you irreligious. When bliss arises, pray at once, ‘Lord, let it go to all who need it.’ Open your heart’s gates and let it flow to every hollow.” This great compassion he called great liberation. All Buddha images are proportioned so that the worshiper, sitting in their presence, enters that resonance of compassion.

How to worship before a Buddha image? I’ll use one example to give you the feel.

In Buddha, the center for worship must be the heart. The purpose of the image is to birth great compassion within you, whose locus is the heart. So fix attention on Buddha’s heart—and simultaneously on your own. Feel both hearts beating together. A moment will come when your own heart is no longer felt as separate—as if a thread links your heart to the Buddha’s heart in the image. This will not be merely “as if”: the heartbeat will become palpable, even to open eyes, at the precise heart-point of the image.

When such a heartbeat is felt, know that prana-pratishtha—installation of life—has happened. Without it, worship has no meaning. Until the heart in the stone image throbs for you, the “murti” is still only stone.

For Buddha, attend to the heart. For Mahavira, a different center; for Christ, a third; for Krishna, a fourth. Every lineage crafted images around different centers.

The amazing thing is: societies have worshiped such images for thousands of years without knowing which center they were worshiping! Without that, you never connect. You place flowers, incense, fold hands, and go home—from before a stone. Remember: the sculptor gives only shape. Who gives life? The worshiper. Without prana, it remains stone; with prana, worship can begin.

And what then is worship? The moment you can breathe life into the murti, it becomes a living presence. As soon as something is alive, both form and formless are in play; the body is form, life is formless. Life has no shape; matter does. Cut off my hand; life is untouched. Even if all neural links to body are severed, life can remain unaware for a time. Wherever there is life, there is the meeting of form and formless.

While the murti is stone, it is form. With prana installed—when the devotee has made his own heart beat within the murti—it becomes both: form on one side, a door into the formless on the other. Traveling through that door is worship.

The first foundation of worship: it is a journey from formed to formless. Another basic step: the ordinary man is self-centered. We live as if we are the center of the universe; sun, moon, stars, birds exist for me. Even God, if he exists, is on the periphery, for my sake: to cure my illness, get my son a job, bail me out of trouble. Note well: the theism of such a man is worse than atheism. He has no idea what he says.

Worship, prayer, religiosity mean: You are the center; I am the periphery. As soon as the murti becomes alive, as soon as you feel the entry of the formless, the second fundamental begins: I move to the circumference; You are the center. Now I will dance for You, sing for You, live for You, breathe for You. Whatever happens, happens for You.

Totapuri, a great knower, once told Ramakrishna, “When will you drop this entanglement with images? Set out on the path of the formless!” Ramakrishna said, “I will—let me first go and ask my Mother inside.” Totapuri: “Which mother?” Ramakrishna: “Kali—the Mother. Without asking, there is no way. On the day worship began, I moved to the periphery and placed Her at the center. Now nothing can happen without Her permission. Without Her consent, even liberation is worthless, and with Her consent I am ready even for hell. This is the vow with which worship began.”

Totapuri could not understand: to ask the murti whether to abandon murti-puja? How will it be abandoned then? But Ramakrishna had already gone in. Totapuri followed and saw tears streaming from Ramakrishna’s eyes: “Grant me leave… give me leave…” Then suddenly he began to dance—permission granted!

To place the divine at the center means a life of surrender. Worship means living as if for God. Rising and sitting, eating and drinking, speaking and being silent—for Him.

When the formless is placed at the center, a wondrous expansion begins. We are cramped by our own hands—like a seed, closed tight. It cracks; the plant begins. Huge shoots spread—so vast they can embrace the whole cosmos. The paradox of religion: whoever saves himself is lost; whoever dissolves himself in worship finds himself.

This is the foundation: place the divine at the center, yourself on the periphery. It is hard—we live re-centering ourselves from birth. Buddha told his monks to spend three months in cremation grounds. “Why?” they asked. “You have come to learn from me; what good is a cremation ground?” Buddha said: “Go. Morning and evening someone will arrive, someone will burn, and you will watch… Perhaps one day in three months it will occur to you that the world is not running for your sake. You were not, yet it ran. The man burning thought the world ran for him—yet it goes on, unaware that a wave has dissolved. When, seeing this, the ‘I am the center’ slackens, come back. Only then can worship begin.” Until you are at the center, prayer and meditation are impossible.

Worship begins with the dissolution of this delusion. So the word “I” drops; “Thou” becomes significant. First the devotee dissolves the murti and opens the door to the formless; then he dissolves himself and enters worship. After the door to the formless opens through the murti, dissolving oneself becomes easier. If even the stone became a doorway, then this body too can become a doorway. Forget the murti and the formless appears; forget yourself and a deeper leap happens.

Between two forms there is difference; between two formlessnesses there is none. Truly, numbers apply only to form; the formless is one. When the murti becomes formless and the devotee becomes formless, there are not “two formless”; there is only the One.

Foundations set, there are many practical methods. A few pointers:

- The Sufis, and the bhaktas like Meera and Chaitanya, gave deep value to dance. Why? Because in intense movement you most easily feel you are not the body. Our consciousness and body are ordinarily in a steady adjustment. Shake the box hard, as Gurdjieff said, and the inner arrangement is scrambled—the identification cracks. In that gap, worship can enter.

- Among Christians there were the Quakers and the Shakers. The Shakers would shake the body so intensely that every fiber trembled for hours. Sweat pours, and body and consciousness seem separate—useful for worship. “Quaking” too—earthquake within.

- Music, chant, and mantra are uses of sound. Modern physics says the ultimate unit of matter is electricity; Eastern seers say it is sound. In any case, sound and electricity are modes of a deeper reality. The Indian seer, journeying within, found that as you go inward, sound grows subtler until even zero has its own hush—anahat nada, the soundless sound. Thus in inner search, sound is the last “particle” before formlessness.

Every sound produces a state within you. Even plants flower earlier with certain music; a cow’s milk may diminish or double. Sound strikes consciousness. We can cut the head with a sword; sound can cut the mind. Religions have refined special sound-currents—bhajan, kirtan, mantra—to sever thought and dissolve the ego so the infinite journey can begin.

A Japanese seeker from Soto Zen told me of a practice: twenty-four hours a day the disciple intones “Muuuu… muuu…” After days, the sound storms inside; thoughts drop. By three weeks, the roaring “Muuuu!” possesses him. Food, sleep fall away; guards must watch him. At the final climax, a last thunderous roar—and suddenly all is still. For days he lies in deep quiet. When he returns, the old man is dead; a new man stands—continuity with the past broken. Om is such a sound; every religion has its own. As worship deepens, sound transforms consciousness.

Repetition is crucial. If you sing one hymn one day, another the next, there will be no results. Continuous blows on one point drive the nail. But beware of mechanical repetition—then it is wasted labor. If the sound becomes your very life, every cell, bone, blood crying it—then sound can open the door.

And all this unfolds before the murti—so the remembrance never breaks that this is not dancing for dance’s sake, singing for music’s sake. The murti to which you have given your heart keeps reminding you: center is there; you are the periphery.

Often the devotee will be found weeping—not from sorrow, but from joy. Tears flow when something within becomes liquid—whether in pain or bliss. Scientists still puzzle over the purpose of tears—but notice they come when something overflows within. In devotion, when all inner ice melts and a stream begins to flow, tears become an articulate thankfulness for a grace descending upon us beyond all deserving—words fail, the eyes begin to speak. The completion of worship is in tears—liquefaction, flowing.

Those who speak against murtis know nothing of worship. In our century such talk gains influence because many others too do not know. The mind accepts negation quickly, because negation proves nothing. “There is no God”—nothing to prove. “There is”—now you must demonstrate. Worship and murti are affirmative. To deny is easy.

Turgenev tells a story: a brilliant man and a village idiot. The idiot wanted to “appear” intelligent. The clever man said: “Do you want to appear, or become? Becoming is long; appearing is easy and foolproof. Here is the mantra: Whenever anyone says anything, immediately deny it. ‘Kalidasa’s play is sublime’—say, ‘Trash! Prove it.’ ‘Beethoven’s music is heavenly’—say, ‘In hell they play the same. Prove it’s heavenly.’ Just keep saying no, and demand proof.” In fifteen days the fool appeared the brightest in the village. Because proving anything is hard; denying is easy.

Our century is mired in this greatest stupidity: negation. But the more negative life becomes, the smaller it becomes. No great truth is realized without affirmation. Say “no,” and the heart closes; say “yes,” and it opens like wings into the sky. Augustine was asked, “What is your prayer?” He said, “Yes, yes, yes, my Lord.” The theist is not one who says “yes” to God, but one who has the capacity to say yes. The atheist is not one who denies God; he is one who can only say no.

Murti-puja is a profoundly affirmative method. But when you truly understand it, you will see: in murti-puja, where is the murti? There is only worship. The murti is the beginning. And even worship—though directed toward God—is, in the depths, a transformation of oneself. God is the device; through that device, changing oneself becomes possible.

Let me return to Dr. Rudolph for one more rule relevant here. When a thought arises in our brain, it travels through nerves and musculature. Suppose in my mind arises the thought: “Let me lovingly take your hand in mine.” If its potential is 100 at inception, by the time it reaches the fingertips it is only 1. Ninety-nine units are lost in transmission. Hence what felt so sweet in thought feels thin in execution; sometimes even negative in a sick body.

Rudolph asked: if this is so, can man ever taste full joy? Is there a way for a thought to leap directly from my brain to yours? Religion says yes. Rudolph too, on the basis of many experiments, said thoughts can jump directly. The entire art of telepathy rests here: concentrate the thought at the ajna chakra, compress it like a small whirling sun—smaller, denser—until it is a point of light. When no smaller is possible, that is the moment to launch it—let it leap from your mind to the other person’s ajna, no matter the distance. It will transfer.

For this reason, the discipline of the point, the bindu, has been developed in many religious forms. You can use it with a person—or with the divine.

For example, you sit before Mahavira’s image. Mahavira’s consciousness has merged into the infinite. Sit before the murti and gather your vital energy at the ajna; let it leap into the murti’s head. Instantly the thought will be transmitted into Mahavira’s consciousness. Through this medium countless seekers have been aided for thousands of years. For them, Buddha, Mahavira, Christ are not dead—but living, here and now. The same method can be used to leap into the supreme—but where to aim? The murti serves as a receiver. To throw directly into the infinite is possible, but very difficult; traditions that do not use images develop other techniques for the direct leap. Hard indeed. Hence those very traditions, after a while, circle back to substitutes.

Islam did not adopt murtis; but the mosque arose, the tombs of saints arose. Even today, wherever a Muslim prays, he faces the stone of the Kaaba. Those who know use that stone to launch the point. What difference does it make whether one kisses a murti’s feet or the Black Stone of the Kaaba? It is the same device.

No pictures or images of Muhammad were made—but then one must resort to the shrines of minor saints. If, instead, Krishna says, “No worry—come to My feet,” that is far-reaching wisdom. Krishna understands that man cannot escape form. The direct leap into the infinite is a rarity—one in millions. What of the millions? If Krishna’s image is not there, some “A, B, C” image will be found.

The result of avoiding Muhammad’s image was that the graves of lesser faqirs became focal points. It is not the fault of Muslims; it is the inner need of man. I hold that what could have been gained through Muhammad’s image cannot be gained through a small village shrine—though Muhammad was right in principle: no image is needed—for that one rare man who needs nothing: no Kaaba, no Quran, no Islam, no Gita, no Krishna, no Buddha. But what of the rest? For them, devices are needed—and the noblest ones should be offered. If one must travel the ocean, better a great ship than a village dinghy. If Buddha’s boat is available, to gather at some talisman-maker’s tomb because someone’s fever once abated there is madness. But without noble forms, people will seek poor substitutes.

There has never been a human society without images in some form. This itself shows that some inner human need is met by the murti. Only in the last two or three centuries has the murti begun to seem a useless burden to be discarded. But if the science of murti-puja were understood, no intelligent person would advocate discarding it. Without that science, idols cannot be saved—they will fall of themselves.

Today people “worship” without knowing, fold hands before stones without heart. These formalists will be the cause of idols being removed—because nothing in their lives changes. A man “worships” forty years with no transformation and tells his son to come to the temple. The son asks, “What has it done for you?” He has no answer. If something had happened, no answer would be needed—his very life would answer.

Aesop tells a small tale: a lion asked the beasts, “I am the king, am I not?” The bear said, “Certainly.” The cheetah, hesitating: “Yes, yes.” Then he asked the elephant. The elephant wrapped him in his trunk and flung him far. As the lion landed, he called out, “Sir, if you didn’t know the answer, you could have said so—why throw me?” One who can lift and fling does not sit to offer arguments.

One who truly worships has no need to argue. His life is the answer. But the “worshipers” of today must argue—because they have no answer. These very “worshipers” become the reason idols are discarded. They hold the idol but have no worship.

Hence I have spoken to you of worship: it is the inner, total transformation. The murti is only an excuse—like a peg on which you hang a coat. If you see me hanging my coat on a peg and say, “What madness! What use is the peg?” I will say, “The peg is not the point. I need to hang the coat. If there were no peg, I would use a nail, a door-corner—somewhere it must be hung.” But when you see me, you see the coat, not the peg—so you don’t object. In murti-puja, you don’t see the worship—the “coat”—you see only the peg. You say, “Why ruin the wall with this peg?” The worship has become invisible; the murti remains visible. Then the murti becomes helpless and defeated. It cannot be saved—only the life of worship can save it. That is why I have spoken to you of worship.