Sunday Meditation: Why worship God when He is everywhere

Sri Udupi Krishna at Udupi

Have you heard the classic argument ? God is everywhere, so there is no need to worship Him in a temple. But if He is everywhere then He is also in the temple.

Once Devaki, the mother of Lord Krishna requested to Him as follows: "My dear Krishna, I have the honour of being glorified as your mother, but I never saw your sweet pastimes of growing up in Gokul. As soon as you were born you were taken away".

Desiring to please His mother, Krishna immediately took the form of baby Gopal and allowed His mother to taste the divine sweetness of these lilas or pastimes.

However, Rukmini, His queen saw this form and said, "My Lord, although I am your queen, I am very attracted to this form of baby Gopal. Could you please give me a deity so that I can worship Him to my heart's content"? Krishna gladly agreed.

For centuries this form was later kept in a mound of Gopi-chandan. And it was this huge mound that was kept in a ship bound for South India from Dwaraka.

The great saint Sripad Madhvacharya was inspired by Krishna and he took that mound and as it broke it revealed the beautiful form of Sri Udupi Krishna. Madhvacharya duly established the temple at Udipi and Sri Udupi Krishna is worshiped there to this day.

Now, Madhvacharya was one of the most intelligent scholars of his times and also the most renounced. Certainly his objective in establishing a temple for the stone deity of Krishna was not sentimental or commercial. So why did he establish a temple with some of the most intricate and systematic rules and regulations of carefully worshiping Krishna?

What you see is what you get (or WYSIWYG), is a term in computer coding and it applies nicely to the art of deity-worship.

Of course, Kamsa also worshiped Shiva as Bhuteshwara Mahadev and so did Ravana at Gokarna. But it is the mood in which you perform the worship of the deity that matters.

Both these personalities used their gains for nefarious purposes and thus got destroyed. If you approach the deity as wood or stone, then that's exactly what you will see.