Pitfalls of the Path
Today I'm in my study and personal library, slowly nursing my pot of Earl Grey. It's a moment respite, from the drudgery of my daily and weekly chores. I write to relax, and reflect. Hopefully, some gem of insight would emerge...
Strangely for the last 2 weeks I find myself writing about God. For someone who professes no religion, it seems rather strange, doesn't it? Have I finally found my true spirituality in the worship of god? Certainly not. And no, it's not because I think it is a path not worth pursuing. It's definitely a legitimate and effective path, practised by millions in the world, epitomised in the Bhagavad Gita as Bhakti Yoga, also known as the path of devotion.
It appears to be an 'easy' path, because it latches on to our natural human tendency to obey an alpha leader. It makes god a conscious being, like us, only more powerful. We can easily imagine such a god, by projecting all the virtuous quality we can find in humans into the superlative realm. The God model is one that anyone can understand. We do not need a lot of deep philosophical knowledge to be able to grasp it. To worship, is an activity as natural to us as eating or sleeping.
To the more intellectually sophisticated, worshiping a supernatural deity or deities seems like a rather primitive practice--something that borders on superstition. How wrong they are! All forms of devotional worship, if practised correctly are no less effective than any spiritual practise that requires superhuman feats of concentration, self-mortification or a lifetime of scriptural study.
Even though I've been referring to the deity in singular most of the time, my views about devotional practices extends to polytheistic worship too. I know that many monotheist believers tend to think themselves as spirituality superior to those who worship many gods, but I do not see anything wrong with it. The worship of idols and images is simply a natural expression of spiritual devotion, provided that it is practised in the right spirit--as aids and not as ends in themselves.
You see, there's a simple principle in operation in all theistic worship: by simply shifting one's sense of importance from oneself to someOne else--we immediately have a grasping point for tackling the ego. What better way to deflate it than to subjugate it before a more powerful one? A master-slave architecture is employed here, and it is one that is simple and intuitive.
Acknowledge that there's a more powerful being out there--our Creator--who determines everything. The secret of the devotional path is to surrender one's will to a higher one. Submitting to God's will is the ultimate act of self-sacrifice. And when done correctly, one is filled with love for the divine. One's ego has no place in the system, because every manifestation of will or desire within one's being is subsumed and aligned with that of the Lord.
How brilliant is that! The ego is simply put in check by our human biological instinct to submit to an alpha figure. Instead of having to tackle a hardened rock of an ego using the chisel and hammer of meditation, we simply disarm it with a manoeuvre akin to spiritual judo. Everything is the will of God. You simply surrender and worship Him.
What are the pitfalls of this path? Unfortunately, its simplicity is both its strength and its weakness. God worshipers think that because they obediently perform the prescribed rules and rituals of worship, they are immediately protected by some sort of personal mafia. Instead of diminishing the ego, they further inflate it by using God as their symbol of pride and treat it as another cause to fight for. They think they are superior to others who do not worship the way they do. They succumb to superstition and bicker over the minutiae of religious dogma.
The path of spirituality is certainly filled with pitfalls. One can easily get sidetracked or be blinded by falsehood. A love of God can easily be inflamed into religious zealotry; spiritual epiphany into intellectual arrogance; the submission to God becomes an excuse for the subjugation of unbelievers. It is a simple and beautiful path to reach heaven, but one wrong turn can also lead to hell.