Shankaracharya says Sai Baba devotees should stop worshipping Lord Rama

[V.Balasubramani]

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Shankaracharya says Sai Baba devotees should stop worshipping Lord Rama

Haridwar: Troubles are mounting for Dwarakapeeth Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand, who was booked on Tuesday for “hurting religious sentiments”.

The case against him was filed in Shirdi.

But this did not stop Swami Swaroopanand from making another controversial statement. A news channel has quoted him as saying that the followers of Sai Baba should stop worshipping Lord Rama, taking holy bath in river Ganga, and chanting Har Har Mahadev.

Earlier in the day, he had declined giving any statement which could flare up tensions, a day after threatening the followers of Sai Baba of Shirdi.

In a turnabout, Swami Swaroopanand had this morning told Zee Media that there should be an amicable and logical debate over the issue.

In the meantime, protesters burnt Swaroopanand's effigy in Varanasi.

The Shankaracharya had earlier incited controversy by saying that worshipping Sai Baba was a conspiracy to divide Hindus. He had also said that Sai Baba should not be worshipped as he was a human being and not a God, and his temples should not be built. His statement was condemned by the followers of the saint.

Read more: http://www.samachar.com/Shankaracha...d-stop-worshipping-Lord-Rama-ogyqQDeiaae.html

 

[vgane]

Very immature statement by the Swami...Hinduism is plural..We have various forms of worship....He has unnecessarily stoked a controversy..He is a Congress supporter and was in the news just before the Lok Sabha elections for slapping a journalist!

 

[auh]

Well, maybe he is right...

 

[prasad1]

He had also said that Sai Baba should not be worshipped as he was a human being and not a God, and his temples should not be built.

Like Vganeji said this is an immature statement.
We worship Rama, Krishna, Radha, Andal who all had human form.

 

[renuka]

I cant stop laughing reading this!LOL

I am surprised that he says one can not pray to a Human but this Swami being a human himself speaks as if Ganga and the chant Har Har Mahadev belongs to him and as if he is Lord Rama's advocate!

Water is like Fire..It does not differentiate anything that comes in contact with it.


Har Har Mahadev is a chant for Lord Shiva and this Swami has no right to stop anyone from chanting it.

Lord Rama had devotees who were not even human to start with..so I wonder why this Swami seems to have lost it!LOL

 

[Dinesh Venkatachar]

Although the Swami may be going against the grain with his statement it does highlight pluralism. I'm American born and take no offense at the title ABCD, since if there was no confusion there would be no questioning. I see the bhattars that are usually employed at Balaji and other Narayana temples offering the same worship to Shirdi Sai Baba's statue. I had a discussion with a friend of mine (half gujarati brahmin from his father, half filipino and Roman Catholic from his mother's side). And with the common western (and eastern) theme that Hinduism is polytheistic. I told him that it is in fact not polytheistic, but rather monotheistic, and that polytheism makes no logical sense. He asked me to explain how it is monotheistic when there are statues for all different Gods and Goddesses. I explained to him give me ten silpis, ten blocks of granite, marble, clay, or wood, etc., all must be the SAME MATERIAL given to the silpis put them in separate rooms from each other and ask them to sculpt an image of God. Even if the silpis all sculpted an image of Balaji, none of those images would look exactly the same, even though the starting material was exactly the same. Bottom line, is that it doesn't matter what the image is that is in front of us, it is in reality the image in our minds that we are worshipping, if we are truly offering worship to the image. Which is how we have the pluralism, and how we have addition of Gods and Goddesses over time (Santoshi Maa through a dream and Sai Baba as a live individual), as well as incorporation of other deities into the fold.