RE: Santoshi Ma
Perhaps new deities visit a few people in person to make the ocnnection and pass their message? I'm thinking along the lines of Mme Blavatsky type meetings with Ascended Master El Morya and I have a vague recollection of there having been more recent ones. Close family friends of mine originated from Calcutta, and were closely connected to Kali Maa's temple. The daughter grew up seeing Kali Maa whilst playing outside. Kali Maa is of course a lot older.
I guess dreams, meditations and the like are all forms in which deities visit.
Here's a slightly different question. Is there a difference between deities and ascended masters? From my Hindu perspective there is, as I pray to gods and goddesses, but keep on 'bumping' into information about certain ascended masters in my reading and inner work. However, I would not revere ascended masters as I would Hindu deities. What got me thinking on this was Doreen Virtue's book on Archangels and Ascended Masters. I respect that she is expressing her personal view, no offence is intended and she isn't claiming to have the whole picture. But I was taken aback to see Hindu deities discussed of in the same breath as 'New Age' Masters. Are Ganesh, Krishna etc ascended masters of ancient who have grown a following over aeons to form cults, and thereafter a faith? I think this ties in with your question, David, on how deities are established, but I'm looking at it from the other end of the telescope so to speak!
RE: Santoshi Ma
Hi Cub,
That's a great question! Yes, there is a difference but it's not black/white. Between Ascended Masters and deities. (BTW Doreen Virtue knows diddly squat about the Masters - she just derived her information from others, and got it wrong, from the real sources.)
If we take Ascended Masters as being real (asI do - you can easily make the case since hundreds of people have met them physically and written about it - I stress physically, not psychically) then I can tell you they do not wish to be worshipped. They consider themselves to be our Brothers and Sisters on the Path. But like someone who is ten years older and you are still eight years old, or likesomeone who has become an expert in some craft, they are there and keen to help us by teaching us and aiding us along the way.If anyone worships them they say, "Direct your adoration towardGod, and toward your own IndividualMighty God Presence." They accept and give brotherly or sisterly love, but don't want to be put on pedestals.
As a thumb-nail sketch, deities may or may not be real. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, for example, may represent the Triune "energies of God" or aspects of God, and not be personages; whereas the Masters, male and female, are people who were once like you and me but who have overcome all karma, transcended all limitations, and achieved total moksha. So they are certainly real persons.
So in a way, I'm only just starting to realise in reply to you that "worship" toward deities is great for people at a certain stage in their development -the deities are there to be worshipped since the people have no knowledge of anythingthat hits the target better. But I think "worship" or rather Love and Adoration will in the future be toward the One and toward our own Higher Self, as the Masters advise. Deity worship frankly may be a bit, er, primitive.
But it's a tough one.It isn't so simple because if you worship Kali or Mother Mary it all goes to God, and transforms you too, anyway.
I said it isn't black and white between Masters and deities and what I mean by this is thatthough the Masters are real individuals, some have been taken on as deities. Jesus is the obvious example in the West, much to his chagrin I'm sure, and the same may be true of Hindu deities. But in Hinduism we usually know if they existed- I'm associated with the Ramakrishna Order in which definite people such as Ramakrishna, his consort Sarada, and Vivekananda are worshipped. But was Krishna a living person? Or Ganesh??? Opinions differ.
Best links on the Masters IMO are:
[link= http://www.ascension-research.org ]www.ascension-research.org[/link]
[link= http://www.templeofthepresence.org ]www.templeofthepresence.org[/link]
.... though I could dig out Theosophy sites which list and have the texts to dozens of people who knew them, met them, and describe them as physical people, if there's a need to prove their historical reality.
V xxx
RE: Santoshi Ma
This brings up a really interesting subject about ascended masters and deities. Perhaps the only difference is that the ascended masters had physical bodies, and the deities were already as they always have been. But then I just remembered, when I read about Vamana (the dwarf avatar), I read that with his first step he was small, with the second he grew larger, and with the third he revealed his infinite form.
That reminds me, the word avatar. Ifthe word did not exist, nothing would have triggered it. As most of you may know, in this field,an avatar is the incarnation of a Hindu diety.
Maybe then,atdifferent times on the face of the physical plane existed avatars from all deities. Were we not once all Gods descending from the source to realise our perfection?
What happened to the beasts and demi-gods bodies? Where they destroyed in the great cataclysms that took place? Have we found any? I know that we found an area of nuclear devistation that took place 8000 - 12,000 years ago, told of in the Mahabharata. I would definatly like to know more about wether Krishna had a physical body on earth.
Aum Tat Sat Aum
El.
RE: Santoshi Ma
ORIGINAL: venetian
So in a way, I'm only just starting to realise in reply to you that "worship" toward deities is great for people at a certain stage in their development -the deities are there to be worshipped since the people have no knowledge of anythingthat hits the target better. But I think "worship" or rather Love and Adoration will in the future be toward the One and toward our own Higher Self, as the Masters advise. Deity worship frankly may be a bit, er, primitive.
That's a quote from myself above. :DI'd like to elucidate, as many people, who may read this, do worship various beings, East and West.
To worship a god, goddess, or any form of deity is to worship something outside of yourself. It often, or usually, gets to the stage of being on hands and knees and praying for that outside agency to give you something, even if it's a very good thing. It can be begging. It can be promising to do this or that so long as the outside agency will just, please, listen and respond. Or you will fast in some way, etc., etc. Then various rituals are formed such as the old killing of calves, or Christian and Hindu rituals. (Does an image of Krishna really need to be fed??)
My understanding is that we are upon Earth to gain self-mastery. Not that the human or mortal ego can ever gain spiritual mastery, but that's the unreal part of ourselves anyway. We are in fact a part of God, we are in fact gods and goddesses who have lost or forgotten that understanding and power. Self-mastery, as the meaning of life, ultimately results in ourselves becoming a true Master. And it can't be accomplished by worshipping outside deities, real or unreal. If there's worship to be done, then the best is to worship one's own God-Self, that Great Being of which we down here below are a part.
Edit next morning to add: I STILL don't think I've explained my own background on how I've understood worship of 'gods' or 'goddesses' to be something to be transcended. I should stress that you do Love the higher being, you do Love the God in them. But you don't feel that they are something totally above you and that you yourself can never be. If Santoshi Ma exists as an actual personage, therefore, I'd say she wants to be treated like an elder sister, or a spiritual advisor - but only so that the disciple can become the same kind of being she is. It's the idea that there are gods and humans as two totally different 'species' which I've been taught to shun. This is the old-fashioned concept found in most world religions today which the new, incoming wave of thinking is slowly overcoming....
Venetian
RE: Santoshi Ma
Hi David,
I've been mulling what you say over (I have to digest ideas in small morsels as I'm so small of stature :D).
I think the elements of deity worship can be mechanically done and so become hollow ritual. The number of times I've been to the temple or to a festival only to see ladies doing their duty in the hopes of divine recompense. It feels like the bartering tradesmen of the NT have come in through the back door into a different temple, only they have the gall to make deals with God. I don't believe that God is there merely to give us our crying wants, and unfortunately in Hinduism He has sometimes been diminished in importance to become a tooth fairy in the factory of life. That's my (harsh) critique of some Hindus.
But how about another possibility? I've found deity worship to be the garden gate to higher levels devotion. The very act of honouring Shiv Bhagvan by performing lingum puja has made me love God so much more deeply than I could have imagined. The practice of worshipping with Ganga water, panchamrut, flowers and bilipatra has brought me so much closer to Him (not just Shiva, but the omnipotent Bramhan), and I've sought to be grateful for that love rather than ask for gain. As I've grown away from the tradesman's game of market place exchange (in my teens I was just as guilty of the same practices I criticise those poor misguided ladies for), I've laid the foundations for a temple in my own heart. The rituals that accompany my faith have been the workman's tools to build a palace fit for God to reside in my being. I care to become one with Him one day, whichever deity's mask he is play-acting in, but at the moment I find ritual is the way to best honour Him and lift my vibration. My hope is that I can transmute my baser elements through humble service to become more worthy of Him.
By lifting myself higher and bringing God increasingly into my living moment cant I become my Higher Self and so join Him?
Perhaps deity worship can lead to union with God?
Love and light,
Cub 😀