We shall continue from previous summary on Vedic God where we had briefly described benefits of worship of Ishwar as follows:

Q: Should we worship Ishwar or not? Why? After all He never forgives!

A: Ishwar should be worshipped and He alone should be worshipped.
It is true that by worship of Ishwar, you will not receive any shortcut pass certificate when you have actually failed. Only lazy and cheaters desire such unscrupulous means to success.
The benefits of worship of Ishwar are different:
a. By worship of Ishwar one is able to understand Ishwar and His creation better.
b. By worship, one is able to better understand His properties and adopt those in his own life. This enhances one’s personality, annihilates the source of future sins, encourages virtues of truth and compassion and comes closer to truth and bliss.
c. By worship, one is able to hear ‘inner voice’ better and get constant clearer guidance from Him.
d. By worship, one eradicates ignorance, gains strength and is able to withstand toughest challenges in life with confidence and aplomb.
e. Ultimately, one is able to remove ignorance completely and achieve Moksha or salvation with ultimate bliss.
I would like to add one more reason for worship.
– Ishwar has done so much for us and continues to do so endlessly. And hence it is natural for us to thank Him in same manner as we thank our mortal parents for their blessings. Only an unfortunate selfish person would not demonstrate his gratitude and lose opportunity to purify his or her heart.
Please note that worship does not mean some mechanical recitations or blankness of mind. It is a proactive approach to imbibe wisdom through actions, knowledge and contemplation.

Q: How should we worship Ishwar?

A: Basically worship of Ishwar lies in each act that we perform in our life. True worship implies following the ‘inner voice’ on a continuous basis. This is called living life of Yajna – selfless acts dedicated only to noble purposes.
This is called worship through actions. However to ensure that one conducts his life purely in a noble manner without deviations, one has to practice on two more aspects:
a. Seeking knowledge
b. Contemplation on the knowledge to imbibe the same as part of our sanskaars.
The trio of Knowledge-Contemplation-Actions go hand in hand and are fruitless in isolation.
For this lesson, we shall focus on specific aspects of ‘Contemplation’. But please note that this assumes that the rest of the two components – Knowledge and Actions are also being utilized in sync. Henceforth, when we refer to worship in this lesson, we would imply only the component of ‘contemplation’ for ease of communication.

Q: What are the key components of Worship?

A: There are three major components:
– Stuti or Glorification
– Prarthana or Prayer
– Upasana or Yogic Practice
In this article, we shall mainly focus on Stuti and Prarthna. We shall also cover Upasana in brief. However this science would demand greater exposition.
Please note that these are not exclusive of each other however.

Q: Explain Stuti in more detail.

A: ‘Stuti’ or Glorification means stating the correct attributes/properties of any entity in most truthful manner. Hence ‘false buttering (makhanbaazi)’ of anything as well as ‘unreasonable condemnation’ are both not Stuti.
The purpose of Stuti of Ishwar is to understand the properties of Ishwar and attempt to model our own nature and actions in sync with Him. For example just as Ishwar is just and kind, we should also be just and kind. Ishwar never gives up, and hence we should also not give up.
One who merely sings the virtues of Ishwar like a drama artist but does not put effort in changing his or her own character is simply wasting time. Because Ishwar is not a narcissist dictator who enjoys being praised. Whatever Stuti we do is solely for our own benefit by improving our own self.
There are two types of Stuti:

A: Ishwar is the main subject of Vedas. Hence a large number of mantras having Stuti of Ishwar are part of Vedas. For example:
Yajurveda 40.8:
He is present in everything, fastest and most powerful, pure, omniscient, knows everything, master of all, eternal, self-sufficient and guides us all with knowledge of Vedas. (This is Saguna Stuti)
He is without body, never takes birth, has no nerves or gaps, does not conduct sin, is separate from pain and miseries. (This is Nirguna Stuti)
Atharvaveda 10.8.1 and 10.7.32-34
He knows what has happened in past, what is happening currently and what can happen in future in most perfect manner. He manages the entire world through this knowledge and is master of us all. He is bliss Himself and completely away from sorrow! He is the greatest and we bow to Him!
He created the earth where we dwell and the universe as well as all those bodies which give us light. He is the greatest and we bow to Him!
He creates the sun and the moon in every cycle of creation. He also creates the fire for our benefit. He is the greatest and we bow to Him!
He creates the air we breathe in and the air we breathe out. He creates the light through which we see. He has created and managed everything in all the ten directions in a marvelous integrated fashion so that we are benefited utmost. He is the greatest and we bow to Him!
Yajurveda 25.13
He provides the power of knowledge to our souls. He provides us all true wisdom and bliss. All scholars worship Him and Him alone. The intelligent ones follow His directions as provided in Vedas to obtain continuous bliss and achieve salvation. Surrender to Him alone is freedom from miseries and deviating away from Him by indulging in misdeeds alone is reason for being trapped in cycles of death again and again. Hence we should worship Him and Him alone who is the very definition of Bliss and Happiness!

Q: What do you mean by Prarthana or Prayer?

A: To request for support from Ishwar after we have put our best efforts for a noble purpose is called Prayer. Neither is it a prayer when we request help for a sinful purpose nor it is a prayer when we request so without having put the best we can. Prayer is neither for the wicked nor for the lazy ones.
Thus:
1. Whatever we pray from Ishwar, we should adopt the same in our lives as well. For example, if we pray for knowledge, we should also put the best efforts to seek knowledge. Prayers make sense ONLY AFTER due effort has been put. Expecting free lunch is mark of beggars, not worshippers of God who Himself never lazes even for a while. Hence, make the due payment and then request your lunch.
2. Wicked prayers bring opposite results because they pollute one’s mind and cause him to invite even more miseries. For example, Ishwar rejects prayers like –
“O Ishwar, destroy my enemy and make me the most powerful and glorious.”  Because if both the enemies would pray for the same, should Ishwar destroy them both?
If someone argues that one who prays more sincerely out of two should be heard by Ishwar, then by this logic, one who prays slightly less sincerely should cause at least some damage, though lesser, to his enemy! This is utter foolishness.
3. Similarly if one prays like “O Ishwar, make Chapati for us, please clean my house, wash my clothes, harvest my crops etc”, he is simply a fool.
In Yajurveda 40.2, Ishwar orders us: “Live for 100 years and even more only by putting best efforts and never ever be lazy.” Those who ignore this order of Ishwar can never achieve happiness, how so much noble they may be in other qualities.
Hard-work or Purusharth is the MOST IMPORTANT characteristic to imbibe in life. All the rest of noble qualities assume that Purusharth is already in place.
In other words, fortune favors the brave.
4. We give job only to those who work, not to lazy ones. Only one who has eyes and wants to see can be shown something. Taste of sugar is obtained only by obtaining sugar and eating it, not by merely saying “Sugar is sweet”. Similarly, only one who puts best efforts in noble activities eventually achieves the Sugar sooner or later.

Q: Can you provide some mantras from Vedas on prayer of Ishwar?

A: In fact many! Read them carefully and enjoy the most blissful activity in life – Prayer to Ishwar. But make sure, you are doing your homework by putting best continuous relentless enthused efforts.
Yajurveda 32.14
O Agni (Enlightening Ishwar), Bless us with same intellect through which Yogis and Scholars worship you. And provide us that intellect right now! We promise to surrender our everything to you without any selfishness. After all you are the source of everything that we possess! (Refer Power of Now for detailed explanation of this mantra)
Yajurveda 19.9
You are brilliant, provide us with brilliance as well.
You are infinitely brave and courageous, provide us with same courage and bravery.
You are all-powerful, make us also strong and powerful in mind and body.
You are fully capable, make us also capable.
You show wrath over crimes and criminals. Make us also cultivate the habit of showing same anger over crimes and criminals.
You tolerate all praise or criticism. Make us also strong enough to ignore praise or criticism and focus only on our goal.
In other words, help us steer away from evil towards goodness.
Yajurveda 34.1-6 (Shiva Sankalpa Mantras)
O most lovable Ishwar! With your blessings, my mind goes far away in all forms of knowledge while awake. Even during sleep, it performs similarly. May my powerful mind gifted by you stays away from all sins and have only pure thoughts always. May I always think for welfare of everyone and never ever do I desire harm for anyone.
O knower of all, this mind propels patient scholars and noble people to continuously do noble deeds and fight evil. This mind has tremendous potential and can stay immersed in welfare of all living beings. May such a noble mind always steer away from sins and desire only virtuous thoughts.
This mind provides all great knowledge. It illuminates one and all and helps us make right decisions. Not even a single task can be accomplished without its support. May such a great mind always remain immersed in noble thoughts and away from evil desires.
The yogis know the past, present and future through this mind. This mind helps us unite with Ishwar and seek ultimate knowledge. This mind works together with 5 senses, soul and intellect to conduct virtuous deeds. May such a noble mind always remain pure and for welfare of all.
The knowledge of 4 Vedas – Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvaveda – lay embedded in the mind in same manner as spokes are attached to center of a wheel. This mind is testimony of existence of Ishwar who is always within it and around it. May such a mind remain always dedicated to noble deeds so that I am able to discover the knowledge of Vedas that lies within me, by eradicating all ignorance.
The mind controls the acts of humans like the charioteer controls the horses with strings. It is extremely fast and stays with me always. May such a mind always seek welfare and noble thoughts for all and never ever dwell into sins.
Yajurveda 40.16
O provider of bliss, self-illuminating, omniscient Ishwar, May you provide us with right intellect. May you steer us away from sinful activities. We pray again and again to you to purify our thoughts, words and actions.
Yajurveda 16.15
O Rudra (One who causes evil people to cry and face miseries)! Please guide us all so that none of us harm our younger ones, our elders, our parents, creatures in wombs, our loved ones and all innocent harmless living beings. Guide us away from the path that would cause us to face your punishments.
Shatpath Brahman 14.3.1.30
May we reject the path of falsehood and progress towards truth. May we reject the path of darkness and progress towards enlightenment. May we reject the path of death and seek eternal immortality in form of salvation. O Ishwar! Please be our guide!
Yajurveda 2.10
O affluent Ishwar! Kindly stabilize me into a healthy body, healthy sense organs and a very noble mind with good habits. Please help us make our country stronger, powerful and prosperous. May our noble wishes always become true and we seek only conduct of noble deeds. May we establish a powerful Chakravarti sovereign nation and establish the rule of justice. May we be able to fight away all the forces of corruption, fraud, treachery that plague my country.
Rigveda 1.39.2
May we be strong always. May our weapons – guns, cannons, ammunitions etc – be always ready and top notch. May our weapons and strength be able to defeat all the evil forces desiring to harm innocent people and stop the might of their armies. May our indisputable power, valor and courage help us establish a sovereign, powerful, prosperous and just nation so that all forces of corruption, treachery, fraud and crimes keep getting defeated by us. But this prayer of ours is only for us when we are on path of truth, compassion, justice and nobility. Those who desire so but are fraud, treacherous, unjust and criminals would always suffer mightiest defeats by Ishwar’s grace. Hence we should only indulge in noble deeds.
Yajurveda 38.14
May we only desire doing noble deeds. May our body be always strong and powerful through good healthy food. May we be relentlessly making efforts. May we be able to understand Vedas and apply that knowledge for our benefit. May we have Brahmins (scholars) who provide us good knowledge. May we have brave Kshatriyas (warriors) so that we establish a power nation and destroy fraud forces within and outside our country. May we have experts who help enhance Science and Technology and develop planes, vehicles, useful gadgets, machines etc. May we always remain on path of justice alone. May we harbor no enmity with any living being. May we have powerful nation, tremendous prosperity and noble virtues.
Yajurveda 18.29
May we surrender our everything to the Ishwar who is our mother, father, friend and guru – our entire life, our life force, our sense organs, our efforts, our happiness, our soul, our enlightenment and knowledge, results of our actions, our sacrifices, our glorifications, our emotions, greatest of our achievements – everything. Because Ishwar is source of everything we possess. In other words, achieving Ishwar be the sole purpose of whatever we think or do in life. This ultimate surrender or Samarpan be the mantra of our lives!
May we consider only Him as our ruler and refuse to accept any other dynasty, person or party as our ruler. May we follow only the laws made by Him and not follow human-made norms if they go against orders of Ishwar. May we unite together to thwart those forces that force us to accept them as our rulers instead of Ishwar. In other words, may we all unite together, never fight against each other and follow only truth in thoughts, words and actions.
Let we be guided by te Supreme and not whims of any one individual or set of incompetents.

Q: What do you mean by Upasana?

A: Upasana means to come closer to Ishwar. In other words, Upasana implies the efforts we make to understand Ishwar better so that we may think, act and speak as per His directions. Thus all those activities that we need to conduct to come closer to Ishwar and realize Him by direct evidence comes under ‘Upasana’.
The one who has destroyed all seeds of ignorance and has come closer to Ishwar through Upasana he or she derives a level of happiness and bliss that cannot be expressed in words but can only be felt within.

Q: How do we do Upasana?

A: This is a long subject and forms the basis of Yoga Darshan. We shall provide very brief details here and take this topic in further details sometime later.

But as Step 1 of Upasana:

following needs to be done. Note that this is a must and rest of the methods of Upasana make sense ONLY when the student is putting his best efforts on this first step. It has two components:

Yama

Ahimsa (Non-Violence)- No hatred or enmity against anyone. Only feeling of compassion.
Satya (Truth)- Seeking to accept truth and reject falsehood to best of one’s knowledge.
Asteya (Non-Theft) – To reject whatever is not rightfully yours.
Brahmacharya (Morality) – To cultivate self-control, not be lecherous, keep sense and work organs under control.
Aprigraha (Humility) – To be humble and without any false ego.

Niyama

Shauch (Purity) – Purity of mind and good hygiene practices.
Santosh (Satisfaction) – Putting best efforts towards conduct of noble deeds regardless of failures, successes, glory or insult without being lazy with full happiness and enthusiasm.
Tapa (Efforts) – To ignore pleasure and pain in path of Ishwar and keep putting efforts.
Swadhyaya (Contemplation) – Constant efforts to increase knowledge, seek good company and understanding Ishwar and meaning of Om etc.
Ishwar Pranidhan (Complete surrender to Ishwar) – Simply submitting the will to path of Ishwar.
After these basics have been understood, we actually become eligible to enter into the academy of Yoga.
Note that it does not mean that only after you have mastered these is that next step can begin. Because these steps themselves contain essence of entire Upasana process. But to take next steps, you should at least understand these and keep working on these genuinely. You may fail but should always rise up again even more resolved to master these Yama and Niyama.
We shall discuss the next steps in detail later.

Q: How do we conduct an Upasana session?

A: Whenever one desires to do Upasana, he or she should
– Seek a relatively isolated place
– Sit in a stable position
– Practice some pranayams (breathing methods to control the mind)
(Not the Anulom Vilom and Kapalbhati popular these days. They are merely physical exercises having nothing to do with Yoga as wrongly asserted. For correct Pranayams refer Chapter 2 of Satyarth Prakash.)
– Focus on any body part of body center line like solar plexus, throat, center of eyes, back, head, center of rib cage etc to bring the mind away from world around into singular focus.
– Start contemplating on Ishwar and our relation with Him. Gradually move towards an emotional connect with Ishwar and immerse into His bliss. Let go of rest of the world. Even if wandering thoughts come, simply ignore in same manner as you ignore mosquitoes when enjoying beautiful music.
– Resolve to remove weaknesses and sinful thoughts and resolve to make yourself pure RIGHT NOW!

Q: What are the benefits of Upasana?

A: We have listed out some benefits in beginning of the lesson. Here are some more:
– One who practices Upasana very rapidly increases the purity of his or her mind and makes it truth-oriented. Since truth=bliss, this makes him enjoy the life significantly more than rest of his peers.
– Gradually this truth=bliss leads him to ultimate bliss of salvation where no misery remains further. There is no state better than this to be achieved.
– One who remains committed to Ishwar 24x7x365 always, continues progressing towards more and more happiness and pleasures in life. He becomes much much more capable, alert, enthused and successful person among his peers who do not do Upasana.
– In summary Upasana makes one most successful both materially and spiritually. After all Ishwar alone is source of all material and spiritual happiness!
– Just as a shivering person in chilling winter feels comfort only when he gets closer to fire, similarly, by getting closer to Ishwar, all the sins of soul get destroyed, his nature, actions and tendencies become in sync with Ishwar and hence he achieves ultimate purity and happiness.
– Upasana of Ishwar will make one’s will-power so strong that he or she would be able to withstand such great challenges in life that may seem impossible for others. When faced with toughest situations in life, such a person would still be able to keep his calm and come out of it successfully. What can be greater wonder to be achieved in human life!
– Further one who does not worship Ishwar is foolish as well as shamelessly thankless. Because none else could ignores the One who gave us such tremendous happiness by creating entire world and is continuously supporting us.
Just think of what treatment we rightfully accord to such ungrateful, selfish and foolish people who disown their own parents!
This in summary is the essence of Vedic concept of Ishwar!
May we all earth-dwellers worship the blessing Ishwar constantly with unanimity in our hearts and togetherness among us all.
Yajurveda 30.3: O Ishwar! You provide us with enlightenment and bliss. You create and manage the entire world! We request you to keep us away from sorrow as well as the evil desires that is the cause of all sorrows. And please lead us to whatever is virtuous, noble, truthful and beneficial for all. May we have only purity within us and ward off all evil thoughts and obtain material bliss like powerful just nation, healthy body as well as spiritual bliss of salvation through our efforts guided by you!
Om Shantih Shantih Shantih!
Let us now enjoy a daily Vedic prayer!
This article is also available in Gujarati at http://agniveer.com/vedic-worship-hinduism-gu/
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Note: By ‘God’ we imply Ishwar or the Supreme Entity and NOT ‘Devata’. ‘Devata’ is a different term but often wrongly considered to mean ‘Supreme Entity’.
While Ishwar is also a ‘Devata’, any entity – living or non-living – that helps us or is useful for us is termed ‘Devata’. But that does not mean every entity is Ishwar and should be worshipped. To avoid confusion, we shall use the term ‘Ishwar’ in this article.
The Supreme One who represents selflessness, controls the entire universe, is present everywhere and is the Devata of all Devatas, alone is source of bliss. Those who do not understand Him remain drenched in sorrow and those who realize Him achieve unconditional happiness. (Rigveda 1.164.39)

Q: How many Ishwar are there in Vedas? We heard there are huge number of Ishwar in Vedas.

A: You have heard from wrong sources. Vedas clearly specify that there is One and only One Ishwar. And there is no mantra in Vedas that can be interpreted to imply multiple Ishwars.
Not only this, Vedas also refuse existence of any angel or Prophet or incarnation who is necessarily required to act as an agent between You and Ishwar.
To give a rough analogy:
Ishwar of Vedas = God of Christianity minus the concept of Trinity minus the necessity to surrender to Jesus
Ishwar of Vedas = Allah of Islam minus the necessity to accept Muhammad as final Prophet.
In other words, If someone says first part of Shahada : lâ ilâha illallâh (There is no other God except one and only Allah) but rejects the second part : Muḥammadur rasûlullâh (Muhammad is his messenger), that is close to concept of Vedic God.
In Islam, it is Shirk or greatest sin to worship anything except Allah. If you take this concept further and also refuse to accept any Muhammad or Gabriel as necessary to be remembered apart from Allah, you are avoiding Shirk as per Vedas.

Q: What about the various Gods or Devatas mentioned in Vedas? What about 33 crore Gods?

A:
1. As mentioned earlier, Devata refers to entities that are useful for us. But nowhere it is mentioned in Vedas that we should worship these entities. Of course, Ishwar is the Devata or Devatas and hence called ‘Mahadeva’. He alone is to be worshipped.
2. The Vedas refer to not 33 crore Devatas but 33 types (Koti in Sanskrit) of Devatas. They are explained in Shatpath Brahman very clearly. These include –
8 Vasus (Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Sky, Moon, Sun, Stars/ Planets) that form components of universe where we live,
10 Life Forces in our body or Prana (Prana, Apana, Vyana, Udana, Samaana, Naga, Kurma, Kukala, Devadatta) and 1 Soul called Rudra,
12 Aditya or months of year,
1 Vidyut or Electromagnetic force that is of tremendous use to us
1 Yajna or constant noble selfless deeds done by humans
The master of these 33 Devatas is the Mahadeva or Ishwar who alone is to be worshipped as per 14th Kanda of Shatpath Brahman.
The concept of 33 Devatas is a great research based subject in itself and requires in-depth study for proper understanding. However, it has been made very clear in all Vedic texts that they are NOT Ishwar and hence NOT to be worshipped.
3. Ishwar has huge number of properties. Ignorant people wrongly consider these properties of Ishwar to be different Ishwars. For example, in today’s newspaper there were 2 headlines – One referred to Dr Singh and other to Manmohan. That does not mean India has two Prime Ministers!
4. To dispel such confusions, there are several mantras in Vedas that clearly state that there is One and Only One Ishwar without any assistants, agents, prophets or juniors to liaison between Him and Us. For example:
Yajurveda 40.1:
This entire world is embedded within and managed by the One and Only One Ishwar. Never dare do any injustice or desire riches through unjust means. Instead follow the righteous path and enjoy His bliss. After all He alone is source of all bliss!
Rigveda 10.48.1:
Ishwar alone is omnipresent and manager of entire universe. He alone provides victory and eternal cause of world. All souls should look up only to Him in same manner as children look up to their Father. He alone provides for our sustenance and bliss.
Rigveda 10.48.5
Ishwar enlightens the entire world. He is undefeated and undying. He is the creator of the world. All souls should seek bliss through seeking knowledge and acting thereupon. They should never shun the friendship of Ishwar.
Rigveda 10.49.1
Ishwar alone provides true knowledge to truth seekers. He alone is promoter of knowledge and motivates virtuous people into noble actions to seek bliss. He alone is the creator and manager of the world. Hence never worship anyone else except one and only Ishwar.
Yajurveda 13.4
There is One and only One Creator and Maintainer of the entire world. He alone is sustaining the earth, sky and other heavenly bodies. He is Bliss Himself! He alone deserves to be worshipped by us.
Atharvaveda 13.4.16-21
He is neither two, nor three, nor four, nor five, nor six, nor seven, nor eight, nor nine, nor ten. He is, on contrary, One and Only One. There is no Ishwar except Him. All devatas reside within Him and are controlled by Him. So He alone should be worshipped, none else.
Atharvaveda 10.7.38
Ishwar alone is greatest and worth being worshipped. He is the source of all knowledge and activities.
Yajurveda 32.11
Ishwar resides at each point in universe. No space is devoid of Him. He is self-sustaining and does not need help of any agent, angel, prophet or incarnation to perform His duties. The soul which is able to realize this One and only One Ishwar achieves Him and enjoys unconditional ultimate bliss or Moksha.
There are innumerable such mantras in Vedas that explain One and Only One Ishwar and instructs us to worship Him directly without invoking any other entity – Incarnation, Prophet, Angel or Agent.

Q: How do you establish existence of Ishwar?

A: Through direct and indirect evidences.

Q: But direct evidence of Ishwar cannot be possible. How do you then establish Ishwar?

A:
1. Evidence means the clear knowledge determined through stimuli received from sense organs. But note that sense organs capture the properties and not the ’cause of these properties’.
For example, when you read this article, you do not capture existence of Agniveer, but only certain images coming on your screen that you interpret into meaningful knowledge. And then you conclude that there has to be some writer of this article and claim that you have evidence of existence of Agniveer. So this is ‘indirect evidence’ even though it appears ‘direct’.
Similarly, this whole creation that we observe via its properties through sense organs imply existence of Ishwar.
2. When you can link a sensory input directly to an entity, you claim to have ‘direct evidence’. For example when you eat a mango, you feel the property of sweetness and associate it with the mango that you consumed. What is important is that you can associate such ‘direct evidence’ ONLY with specific sense organ that was used to observe that property.
Thus in previous example, you cannot have ‘direct evidence’ of mango through ‘ears’ but only through ‘tongue’ or ‘nose’ or ‘eyes’.
Also in reality this is also ‘indirect evidence’ though we term it ‘direct evidence’ for sake of simplicity.
Now since Ishwar is the most subtle entity existing, it is impossible to have ‘direct evidence’ of Ishwar through coarse sense organs like eyes, nose, tongue, skin or ears. For example we cannot see subatomic particles even through most powerful microscopes, we cannot hear ultrasonic sound, we cannot feel the touch of each individual molecule.
In other words, Ishwar is impossible to be evidenced through these coarse and weak sense organs just as mango cannot be sensed through ears or subatomic particles cannot be sensed through any sense organ for that matter.
3. The only organ that can sense Ishwar is mind or Mana. When mind is fully controlled and devoid of involuntary disturbances (like thousands of thoughts coming all the time) and adequate knowledge about properties of Ishwar has been obtained through study and practice, Ishwar can be evidenced directly through intellect in same manner as a mango is evidenced through its taste.
This is the goal of life and this is what a Yogi attempts to do through all the various methods of mind control that include cultivating traits like non-violence, truth-seeking, compassion, seeking bliss for all, high moral character, fighting against injustice, unity among people, etc etc.
4. In a way we get hints of direct evidence of Ishwar everyday in our life. When we try to indulge in any wrong act like theft, cheating, brutality, we hear that faint ‘inner voice’ in form of fear, shame, doubt etc. And when we indulge in noble deeds like helping others, blessing a child etc, we again hear that ‘inner voice’ in form of fearlessless, sense of satisfaction, enthusiasm and feeling of bliss.
This ‘inner voice’ is from Ishwar. Often we reduce its audibility by trying to silence it through loud DJ Music of stupid tendencies around. But then we all at times feel this ‘inner voice’ getting louder now and then, when things are relatively silent.
5. And when the soul purifies itself from mental disturbances and gets away from the DJ club, it is able to directly evidence itself as well as Ishwar.
Hence both through direct and indirect evidence, Ishwar is established as clearly as other entities witnessed by us.

Q: Where does Ishwar live?

1. Ishwar is omnipresent and hence resides everywhere. Had Ishwar been living at a particular place like some special sky or on some special throne, He could not have been omniscient, omnipotent, manager of all, creator of all and destructor of all. You cannot perform actions at a place where you are not present.
2. If you say that Ishwar manages the world from one place just like sun illuminates earth from far off or you watch TV through remote control, this is defective logic. Because sun is able to illuminate the earth or remote control is able to operate the TV only through radiation waves that travel through the interim space. Just because we are unable to see them we call it remote control. In reality there is nothing like a remote control. Thus the very fact that Ishwar is able to manage something implies that it is present there to manage it.
3. Further, if Ishwar is omnipotent, why would He be scared to restrict Himself to a small space. This makes Ishwar limited. Christians say God is on 4th sky and Muslims say that Allah is on 7th sky. And their followers keep fighting each other to prove themselves right. Is it that God and Allah decided to live in separate skies so that they also do not start fighting like their angry followers?
In reality these are childish talks. When Ishwar is All-Powerful and controls entire universe, there is no reason why He would be scared to limit himself to a small part of universe. And if He is, he cannot be termed All-Powerful.

Q: Does it mean Ishwar is also in dirty things like alcohol, urine, excreta?
A:
1. The entire creation is within Ishwar. Because Ishwar is also outside these things but these things do not exist outside Ishwar. So all things in world are pervaded by Ishwar. To give a very rough analogy, we are within Ishwar in similar manner as a pice of cloth within tub of water. There is water within, outside and all around the cloth. There is no portion of cloth which is not wet with water but there is water beyond the cloth as well.
2. Anything is dirty or good for us depending upon our duty towards it. The same set of atoms that form the tasty mango we eat is so lovely for us. But when the atoms disintegrate, interact with other chemicals and form excreta, that becomes dirty for us. But in essence all these are merely different combinations of particles of nature. Since we have a mission on this earth, we analyze each thing with regards to the mission and accept some/ reject rest. What we reject is dirty or trash for us and what we accept is good for us. But for God, such duty does not exist and hence nothing is dirty for Him. On contrary, His duty is different from ours – to help us achieve bliss in just manner – and hence nothing in His entire creation is untouchable for Him.
3. If you look from another analogy, Ishwar is not like a pampered social worker who would prefer to plan remotely in his air-conditioned office but would desist from visiting the slums where actual social work has to be done. He, on contrary, exists to manage the most dirty of the places for our benefit.
4. And since He alone is most perfect, despite He being everywhere and everything being within Him, He is separate and different from these things.

Q: Is Ishwar Kind and Just?

A: Yes. He is the epitome of kindness and justice.

Q: But these are opposite traits. Kindness means to forgive a criminal. And justice means giving punishment to criminal. How can both exist at same time?

A: Kindness and Justice are basically one and same. Because both serve the same purpose.
1. Kindness does not mean forgiving a criminal. Because if that be done, several innocent people would become victims. Thus unless justice is meted out to a criminal, one cannot be kind to innocents. It will also be not justice to the criminal because he would not be prevented from further crimes.
For example, if a dacoit is forgiven, he would harm several innocent people. And if he is imprisoned, it would not only prevent harm to innocents but also allow him opportunity to improve himself and not do further crimes. So in justice alone lies kindness for one and all.
2. In reality, kindness refers to the purpose of Ishwar and justice to the process. When Ishwar punishes a criminal, He does it to prevent the criminal from doing further crimes. And he also prevents innocent people from getting punished for no offense of theirs. Thus the entire purpose of justice is kindness to all.
3. As per Vedas, and observation, the source of sorrow is ignorance which causes one to do wrong acts called crimes. So when a soul does such wrong acts, Ishwar restricts his freedom to do crimes and allows him opportunities to remove his ignorance and remove sorrow.
4. Mere saying sorry is not sufficient to receive pardon of Ishwar. The source of sin or crimes is ignorance and until that is removed, the soul would continue to get rightful punishments or rewards for its actions every moment throughout several births and deaths. And the purpose of all this justice is His kindness towards the soul to gift it with ultimate bliss.

Q: Does that mean, Ishwar will never pardon my sins? Islam or Christianity are better. There, if I confess or say sorry, all my past records are deleted and I am given fresh opportunity.

A:
1. Ishwar does pardon your sins. His pardon lies in the just results of your actions that He provides and not in deleting your past records.
2. If He were to delete your past records, He would be doing greatest injustice and brutality to you. Because in this case, He has allowed you to be promoted to next class even when you have not gained the competence to pass the present class. And in process he is doing injustice to others also who interact with you.
3. Pardoning means providing opportunity to improve your competence and not giving you 100% when you deserved a zero. This is exactly what Ishwar does. And remember that improving competence does not happen in one moment or through one word of ‘Sorry’. It demands dedicated practice and efforts over a period of time. Only lazy people seek shortcuts like trying to get 100% without even studying the course.
4. Unfortunately, those who attract people to their religion by saying that God will forgive their sins are fooling themselves and people. Suppose someone has diabetes. Does it get treated merely by saying sorry? When a physical disease takes much more than a sorry to be treated, how can mind – the most complex thing known to humanity – be treated by a sorry?
5. Actually these ideologies have a blatant flaw – they believe in one life and do not believe in rebirth. So they want to create artificial hurry formula to attract people. And scare them to Hell of they do not agree to them. We have already covered the loopholes of One Life theory in God must be crazy!
6. Vedic philosophy is much more natural, amenable to logic and reasonable. Neither is there a Hell where you would be thrown to burn forever by an Ishwar who is as loving as Mother, nor would He debar you from opportunities to actually raise your competence through efforts and achieve what you truly deserve. After all what is more satisfying:
a. Rank 1 through a fake mark sheet when we know that actually we had got zero, or
b. A proud Rank 1 through hard work and burning midnight oil, when we know that we did the best we could to become masters of the subject!
So in vedas, there are no shortcuts or longcuts to success. There is only the right cut! And the success is much more satisfying than what any illusionary and illusive shortcut can be imagined to provide!

Q: Is Ishwar with form or formless?

A: He is formless as per Vedas and commonsense.
1. He cannot be omnipresent if He has form. Because form implies existence of boundary. And hence He should not exist beyond the boundary if He has form.
2. Form can be seen only if Ishwar is coarse. Because any object finer than what can reflect light waves cannot be seen. Now Vedas clearly define Ishwar as the most finest, without gaps and uniform everywhere. (Refer Yajurveda 40.8 for example). Hence He cannot have form.
3. If Ishwar has a form, it means that someone created His form. This is not possible. If you say that He himself made His form, it means He was formless earlier.
4. If you say that Ishwar is both formless and with form, it is not possible because both are contradictory.
5. If you say that He takes divine forms at times, kindly specify what divine means. Say Ishwar took divine form of a man. Now how will you define boundary of Ishwar atoms and non-Ishwar atoms. Further since He is present everywhere with same density (uniformity), how we distinguish between man-Ishwar and rest of world. And if Ishwar is same everywhere, how are we seeing the boundary?
6. What we see as human body is actually continuous exchange of matter and energy with rest of the world. It is impossible to distinguish each atom as part of human body or rest of the world. So it will be impossible to segregate even body of man-Ishwar. For example, will the spit, urine, sweat and other excreta from man-Ishwar also be divine?
7. In Vedas there is no concept of Ishwar being with form. Further there is nothing that Ishwar cannot do without form that He must assume a form.
8. What we normally consider as divine Ishwar forms – for example people like Ram and Krishna – were actually divinely inspired. Remember, we talked about ‘inner voice’ of Ishwar? These legends were epitome of Ishwar worship and purity of mind. And hence for normal people, they were Ishwar themselves. However Vedas prohibit worship of anyone except Ishwar. Thus, these persons should instead be emulated (their examples be followed in our own real lives) to offer our gratitude to them. This hero-followership is as per Vedas and explained in The power of Now! – Know Vedas.
9. Had Ishwar taken form and worship of these forms been the recipe for salvation, Vedas would have detailed description on this topic. But Vedas do not even hint at such concepts.

Q: Does it mean all these temples and worship of Ram, Krishna, Durga, Lakshmi wrong?

A: Yes and No.
No, because the core of these worship methods is to pattern your mind towards higher realizations. Like creative visualization used in psychology as well. Humans understand things through sense organs and mind. These worship methods use these senses to understand and generate emotional / spiritual intelligence for understanding Supreme.
Yes, because today most of us have lost the core essence and do worship mechanically. This is not much fruitful despite best of intent.
Take example of a pious mother living in a remote village. Her son gets bitten by snake. She rushes to local Tantrik for Jhaad Phoonk in an attempt to save life of her child. Would you call her wrong or right?
The bulk of Ishwar worshippers today, be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian or whatever are in same state. Their intentions are genuine and worth greatest respect. But out of ignorance, they adopt wrong practices of worshipping Ishwar. This is obvious from the fact that hardly anyone even knows about the Vedas, even though, at least the Hindus agree that Vedas are supreme. We have forgotten the way our legends worshipped Supreme.
The right way to show our gratitude to great legends of past should be by imbibing their virtues and doing noble deeds accordingly. For example, we see Ravans all around in form of corruption, terrorism, immorality etc. If we can unite to counter these in rightful manner, that would be true glorification of Ram. Same with Krishna, Durga, Hanuman etc. If we can snatch back Ram Mandir, Krishna Janmabhoomi, Kashi, that will be true worship.
I have been a fan of Hanumanji throughout my life. My way of his glorification has been preservation of my moral character and putting efforts for a strong and healthy body that serves the society. What point is in worshipping Hanuman with weak body and irritable stomach yet consuming heavy laddus!
While the motive behind all these modes of worship is worth greatest respect and we humbly bow to the purity of true devotees of any cult, it is our wish to see all devotees to adopt the same methods of worship that Ram or Krishna adopted in their own lives!

Q: Is Ishwar Omnipotent or All-Powerful?

A:
Yes, He is omnipotent. But that does not mean He can do whatever He wants. Doing whatever one may want is sign of indiscipline. On contrary, Ishwar is most disciplined. Omnipotence means that Ishwar does not need help of any other entity to conduct His duties – creation, management, destruction of universe. He is self-sufficient to conduct His duties.
But He would act only as per His duties. For example, He will not kill Himself to create another Ishwar. He cannot make Himself an idiot. He cannot do theft or dacoity etc.

Q: Does Ishwar has a beginning?

A:
Ishwar is without any beginning and without any end. He was always present and will always remain. Further His properties remain same at all times.
Soul and Nature are two other beginningless and endless entities.

Q: What does Ishwar want?

A: Ishwar wants bliss for all souls and wants them to achieve this bliss through deserving efforts purely on basis of merit.

Q: Should we worship Ishwar or not? Why? After all He never forgives!

A: Ishwar should be worshipped and He alone should be worshipped.
It is true that by worship of Ishwar, you will not receive any shortcut pass certificate when you have actually failed. Only lazy and cheaters desire such unscrupulous means to success.
The benefits of worship of Ishwar are different:
a. By worship of Ishwar one is able to understand Ishwar and His creation better.
b. By worship, one is able to better understand His properties and adopt those in his own life.
c. By worship, one is able to hear ‘inner voice’ better and get constant clearer guidance from Him.
d. By worship, one eradicates ignorance, gains strength and is able to withstand toughest challenges in life with confidence and aplomb.
e. Ultimately, one is able to remove ignorance completely and achieve Moksha or salvation with ultimate bliss.
Please note that worship does not mean some mechanical recitations or blankness of mind. It is a proactive approach to imbibe wisdom through actions, knowledge and contemplation.
We shall discuss this in detail subsequently. For now, you can refer to: How to worship?

Q: When Ishwar does not have limbs and sense organs, how does He conduct His actions?

A: He does not need coarse organs for his actions that happen at most microscopic level. He does so through His inherent powers. He sees without eyes because his eyes are present at every points in space, He does not have legs, but is fastest, He does not have ears but listens to everything, He knows everything but is beyond complete cognizance of everybody. This shloka comes in Upanishad. Ishopanishad also describes this in detail.

Q: Does Ishwar know His limits?

A: Ishwar knows everything. This means that He knows whatever is truth. Since Ishwar is limitless, He knows Himself as limitless. It would render Him ignorant if He tries to know His limits when none exist.

Q: Is Ishwar Saguna or Nirguna?

A: Both. Ishwar is Saguna if you refer to properties like Kindness, Just, Creator, Maintainer etc. But He is Nirguna, if you refer to properties that He does not possess – like dumbness, senselessness, anger, cheating, birth, death etc. Its only a semantic difference.

Q: Please summarize major properties of Ishwar as per Vedas.

A: His properties are infinite and cannot be expressed in words. But here are some major properties:
– He exists
– He is animate
– He is source of all bliss and happiness
– He is formless
– He is unchangeable
– He is all-powerful
– He is just
– He is kind
– He is unborn
– He never dies
– He is infinite
– He is omnipresent
– He has no defects
– He has no beginning and no end either in time or space
– He is uncomparable
– He maintains entire universe
– He creates entire universe
– He knows everything
– He never deteriorates and remains perfect always
– He is fearless
– He is pure
– He has no agents and establishes direct relationship with all souls.
He alone deserves to be worshipped without invoking anyone else.
This alone is the path to bliss and removal of all miseries!
This article is also available in Hindi at http://agniveer.com/vedic-god-hi/ and Gujarati at http://agniveer.com/6029/the-vedic-god-gu/
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