Agreed...but sometimes too many directions becomes directionless.
I feel in the past people stuck to their matam...a Shaiva worshipped only Shiva ..a Vaishnava worshipped only Vishnu..
Then the phenomenon of everything is under one roof came and all forms became an alphabet soup and direction was lost in this criss crossing of matams.
Its like a matam sankara..an admixture of matams..the sarva dharma concept which finally leads to a lack of direction.
It is glib to say so.
There are two aspects to religion/spiritual thinking.
One involves brain activity--to think, explore, understand and explain.
The other involves the living here and now with all fears, happiness, sorrow, burden etc., and looking for an explanation to the suffering as well as doing things to bear, fight and come out successful.
The directions are for those who are in the quest no.1. There are several pointers and each chooses a pointer and travels in the direction shown depending on his equipment.
The stotram, the rituals, the discipline, the faith etc., are for those who are taking the quest no.2.
There are also those whose equipment is either in disrepair or absent completely who feel directionless and give up altogether or become anti heroes.
Matams are visible distant light houses for seekers. They show where safety of shore lies.
Most texts do not encourage a Varna Sankar..admixture of Varna but no one talks about admixture of matam.
I feel an admixture of matam creates chaos and confusion.
Varna is altogether a different issue. Varna sankar is spoken against because it involves dilution of skills inherited through genes and the impact of the environment on genes. It involves not only skills acquired already but also wipes out the potential and scope for future improvement and refinement of skills. And society stands to lose. Matoms do not create confusion. It is what you look for from a matam that creates confusion. If you do not get what you look forfrom a matam, go to the next matam and try to settle down.
May be if each sect detaches from the nidus called Hindusim and follow their sect correctly..then may be less confusion will prevail.
Just 1 form of God..1 doctrine...it might be for the better.
Those societies which wanted to organize themselves either to go to war to win territories or to enslave other societies needed a central theme to rally people around and the religion came handy. The ghettoisation of Jews of England and Scotland, the burning at stakes of protestants in England, the killing of Jews by Nazi Hitleretc., and even the atrocities let loose on the innocent poor vaishnavite community in Melkote in Karnataka by the sultan's army (these families do not celebrate Diwali because the mayhem was on a Diwali day hundreds of years back) are all instances where the political need to organize and subjugate was the overwhelming driving force and religion as a spiritual path was just secondary or was ignored completely.
It is politics-pure and simple. Politics needs a single God and unquestioning followers. The single doctrine, single God named by me and me alone, are those of religions which came into being for political reasons. Hinduism accepts one God but leaves it to the individual to determine how he perceives that God and worships/not worships that God. It recognizes that the individuals have equipments of different capacities and different methods of performance.
In Hinduism looking for one doctrine/one god is accepted but is never thrust on people. Individuals have a lot of liberty.
I feel among sects..Vaishnavaism ia focused but.they could do better if Vishnu didnt have partners as in Lakshmi or Avatars or Messegers/Alwars.
Men and women are different in creation. And Gods and Godesses of Hinduism fulfills the need to give form to the representation of femininity. No other religion seems to have addressed this aspect. alwars were not messengers in the sense in which the term messenger is un derstood in other religions. There is a lot of difference.
Alwars/Nayanmars were very evolved souls. Period.
Shaivaism as in only worship of Shiva Linga and nothing else is the closest.one can get to a Formless worship.
Shiva Linga is a "formless" form.
Shiv Ling is not a form. It is just an indicator/a mark/a label to indicate something else. Human mind when fails to grasp anything from a vacuum, has been shown the indicator(the linga) and to imagine a God entity behind it with the given equipment.
Just some thoughts.