Q: Why can’t I love other gods the way I love Sri Maa? What to do about other gods in the puja room? Is it alright if I do not any kind of traditional worship and only do Sri Maa Nama Japa?
ALOKDA: There are two things or rather two distinct domains of action each with its own working, – the occult and the spiritual. The major as well as minor gods belong largely to the occult domain. They have certain specific though mostly limited powers in certain fields. When rightly worshipped they can help their devotee with worldly and other-worldly goods. Some great gods can help us in our spiritual growth as well. This is as far as the traditional Puja of the gods is concerned. It is a way to connect with and appease them, mostly to gain certain earthly goods.
The first radical step for the spiritual life is freedom from ignorance and the discovery of the soul and the Divine within us. The gods cannot grant us that. They can help us in the spiritual journey but they do not have the power to liberate us. They can help us while we are struggling in the net of lower nature but they cannot free us from its mesh. That is why most spiritual paths insist on surrendering to the One Divine or His Representative in the form of the Guru or the Avatar. If one is fortunate to have found the Guru then there is obviously no further need of seeking help from the gods. The gods are each an aspect of power of the Divine that is acting with a certain degree of independence. But this independence limits them as well from the One Infinite Source. In the Divine the gods themselves arrive at their true and harmonious togetherness. Therefore their worship in the lower and lesser forms of their manifestation is not only no longer needed but can sometimes create confusion by pulling us in a direction contrary to our core aspiration.
As far as the Supramental Transformation is concerned, we look upon the gods with a benevolent understanding of a luminous indifference knowing their labour in creation but all our faith, allegiance, worship and surrender go to the Divine Mother and no one else.
