There is a lot of word-play here. Words without depth and words without any real meaning.
It is worth giving a reading to the following write up under "The Speaking Tree" that appeared in The Times of India, Chennai Edition today:
Though a deity is usually made of stone, it has presence. But, to draw divinity out of stone, a devotee’s intense prayer and supplication are needed. The Vedas declare that God pervades every atom of the universe. By that logic, nothing can be excluded.
In Hinduism, the deity plays an important role. Proponents of the Dvaita school of philosophy wittingly create a distinction between God and devotee. They want a visible form to adore and worship. Though Advaita is the ultimate goal, there are those who relish bhakti marg, which establishes a personal and loving relationship between the devotee and the divine. This relationship envisages a personal god with form, who can be invoked and adored. Thus multifarious deities are crafted to exact specifications as laid down in the Vedas. Secondly, when a deity is placed at a shrine, a ceremony called, ‘Prana Pratishta’ is duly performed, as per Vedic guidelines, by which the divine essence of the god or goddess is invited and infused into the image.
The shrine becomes a sacred spot for the devout to express their devotion. Though the Divine is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, only enlightened beings can experience this. For simple, worldly souls, the hurly-burly of existence presents constant challenges and obstacles that call for daily attention. To ‘see’ the Divine everywhere through these daily struggles, is not always workable. Marked out consecrated spots, assist in marshalling faith and attention towards divinity. Just as a house has a living room, bedroom, and dining room, for specific associated activities, at different times, a marked out spot for God, at home or outside, becomes a sacred space to connect to the Divine.
Rituals always potentially facilitate direct communion with the divine. ‘God’ is ever immanent and all it takes is a heart brimming with devotion to draw Him out. The ardent belief that the deity is alive and responsive makes it so. This is not a fanciful fable to the community of the devout. They have and will go back again and again to their beloved shrine to repeat the experience and garner blessings.
Sri Sathya Sai Baba says of the many prevalent forms of gods and goddesses in Hinduism… “Each name and form is indicative of an aspect of divinity. Each one is a facet, a part, a ray of the Supreme… in fact, everywhere you look the attribute-less divine has taken on attributes. Without the help of name and form you cannot comprehend the formless divine. Even Shankara, the biggest proponent of non-dualism, worshipped images in childhood, and he realised the value of saguna-swarupa (worshipping gods with form)…therefore he advised saguna-aradhana to the large majority of people even later in his life.”
Places of worship provide structure and discipline for remembering the Supreme. This promotes humility, and nurtures the devotional instinct and desire for purifying impulses. Legion are stories of devotees visiting a shrine at a hallowed spot, and feeling overwhelmed with bliss. Tears streaming down their cheeks, with the devotees not knowing why or how. This is the power of the deity, and the faith resposed in the saguna version of the Supreme or whatever name you give it. The experience lies beyond the region of the mind -- so reason and logic flounder in the face of it.
My comments:
I beleive that human beings as they mature with time, due to accumulation of knowledge and experience, try to understand the God concept. But unlike the realities of the physical world which are measurable, definable and determinable by the different scales and equipments that are available to the humans, the God idea defies all the known equipments and scales. So every time someone tries to measure up or define that idea, the resultant finding remains woefully inadequate. So every generation contributes to the voluminous knowledge that is already available there about God. Vedas, upanishads, sutras, bhashyams etc., are all examples of this. The journey continues and the search also continues. Only this much can be said about the human endeavor to define God entity.
Good luck to everyone who has taken the path of searching for truth.
