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What do we worship
> Guest contributors > Know thyself: What do we worship?

Know thyself: What do we worship?

What do we worship the most? Desire? Enjoyment? Or is it wealth, which brings all of these about?

Now, common sense says worship also means…. (pauses)…well, what does human being worship most?

Desire? Enjoyment? Or is it wealth, which brings all of these about? Yes, wealth, which can bring us enjoyment, of course! So, these are the things that man worships–pride, prestige, respect, wealth, lust and sensory enjoyments.

This is all that man normally worships.

One need not necessarily do pooja in a temple. This is what one worships–power, and only power.

Oh! I forgot! Absolute power is absolute corruption. So, the Upanishad is telling us that what we worship normally contains no ‘Truth’. It is only when we cease worshiping these that we come upon the ‘Truth’, which is the Brahman.

As you read the Upanishads, you will find it mentioned in many places that the seeker of the Truth is addressed as Satya Kama. It could be a name, but then Sanskrit is an ancient language and every name has a meaning. It is not just a meaningless name. It is a verbal language.

It is only when we cease worshiping these that we come upon the ‘Truth’, which is the Brahman.

So, Satya Kama means one whose desire, whose only desire, is the ‘Truth’. When one is consumed totally and passionately with the desire for ‘Truth’ and ‘Truth’ alone, then it means that one worships only the ‘Truth’; therefore, one does not worship anything else here and, therefore, such a person is sure to reach the ‘Truth’.

Why? The movement into the ‘True-Self’ is directly proportional to the moving away from worshiping anything else, other than the ‘Self’. So, this is the meaning of the saying, ‘nothing that you worship here’. It does not mean that you should not worship something here.

For instance, do your devotional practices, which help a great deal.

Even the greatest iconoclastic religions worship something. They do not have an image of God, but they do have a symbol. If they don’t have a symbol, they have a book. If they don’t have a book, they have a teacher. If they don’t have a teacher, they have some letters that are considered holy.

Or if they don’t have any of these, they at least have a direction to turn to, which again is a symbol. Show me one religion, where there is none of these.

It is rather the understanding that the ‘Self’, the ‘True-Self’ we are speaking of, the Supreme Brahman is ‘that’ which is beyond the reach of even the mind.

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