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Worship of God is reserved for God only, not for anyone else. But the exchange, cooperation, between men and women for worshiping God, that is essential. Not that woman should be worshiped like God, or man should be worshiped like God

Expressions researched:
"Worship of God is reserved for God only, not for anyone else. But the exchange, cooperation, between men and women for worshiping God, that is essential. Not that woman should be worshiped like God, or man should be worshiped like God"

Lectures

Philosophy Discussions

Worship of God is reserved for God only, not for anyone else. But the exchange, cooperation, between men and women for worshiping God, that is essential. Not that woman should be worshiped like God, or man should be worshiped like God. But the affection sometimes is stressed that you see him as God or see, see her as God. That is sentimental.
Philosophy Discussion on Auguste Comte:

Prabhupāda: Worship of man, woman.

Hayagrīva: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes, to give protection to women. That is not actually worshiping, but maintaining her comfortably, that is the duty of the man. But to worship woman as God, that is not very good proposal. Then he will be henpecked. Worship of God is reserved for God only, not for anyone else. But the exchange, cooperation, between men and women for worshiping God, that is essential. Not that woman should be worshiped like God, or man should be worshiped like God. But the affection sometimes is stressed that you see him as God or see, see her as God. That is sentimental. But God is different either from man or from the woman. Both of them are living entities, both of them meant for worshiping God. Just like sometimes in the Vedic conception the wife is considered as dharma-patnī, religious wife. Means wife helps the husband in the matter of his religious life. That is found in, still in Hindu family: the man is worshiping the Deity and the woman is helping about the paraphernalia Deity worship, helping the husband so that he can immediately come into the Deity room and begin worshiping comfortably. So woman should always be engaged to assist the man in every respect in his religious life, in his social life, in his family life. That is real benefit of conjugal life. But if the woman does not agree with the man, and the man treats the woman as his servant, that is not good. The man should give the woman all protection and the woman should give all service to the man. That is ideal life, family life, conceived in the Vedic way of life.

Hayagrīva: Comte conceives the worship of woman as preparatory for the worship of mankind at large. He says, "The worship of woman begun in private and afterwards publicly celebrated is necessary in man's case to prepare him for any effectual worship of humanity," and that "Only man is the supreme being. It must not, however, be supposes that the new supreme being is like the old, merely a subjective result of our powers of abstraction. Existence in the true sense can only be predicated of humanity."

Prabhupāda: What is the idea?

Hayagrīva: That man is all there is.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Can you explain what is the idea expressed in this sentence?

Hayagrīva: He wants to do away with the Catholic religion and institute the worship of humanity, or the worship of man. He says that everything else is abstraction, is speculation, and that only man is the..., man is the only existence in the true sense. Atheism.

Prabhupāda: Man is existence?

Hayagrīva: Man is the only existence.

Prabhupāda: Then? There is nobody else? What about the animals? Man is the only existence, and what about the animals? They are also...

Hayagrīva: He doesn't seem to consider the animals.

Prabhupāda: So what, what is the position of the animals? They are also living being.

Hayagrīva: The animals would be subservient to man.

Prabhupāda: Therefore...

Hayagrīva: Man is the..., if humanity is the supreme being...

Prabhupāda: We cannot understand what does he mean, "supreme being" and "humanity." The supreme being is God. The human being is also God? Or what does he mean, "humanity"? What is the clear meaning of humanity?

Hayagrīva: Mankind, all mankind.

Prabhupāda: All mankind? There are millions and millions of mankind. So instead of worshiping God you can worship millions of millions of men. Is it possible?

Hayagrīva: He must mean mankind in a generalized sense.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but how you can serve the mankind? Suppose if I serve one man, does it..., is it worshiping the mankind? If not, then how you can worship millions of men at a time, or in your life? How it is possible?

Hayagrīva: Well he felt, um, that the worship of humanity could be systematized, just like the worship of God, and he even devised a calendar devoted to the worship of famous dead men, and he felt that the churches could serve for a while as places to carry out these ceremonies. He says, "The buildings erected for the service of God may for a time suffice for the worship of humanity in the same way that Christian worship was carried on at first in pagan temples as they were gradually vacated."

Prabhupāda: Yes, unless one has got full sense of God, they cannot stick to the worshiping method. And we have got practical experience in Los Angeles that we purchased that church because it was not going on at all. They made plans for Sunday school and so on, so on, but somehow or other it failed. Nobody was coming to the church. At last it was sold to us. Now this same church is there, and the same Americans are there, but at the present moment in our Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Temple it is always packed up. So what is the reason? The same church is there and the same men are there, but formerly nobody was coming, so that the church was sold to us. Now it is all packed up. What is the reason? The reason is that simply religious sentiment, assembly in the church, will not help us unless there is spiritual life and based on philosophy and full understanding of the goal of life. That will make religion perfect; otherwise no.

Hayagrīva: Here is his conclusion and the last point. He says, "The whole effect of positive worship will be to make men free...," excuse me, "The whole effect of positive worship will be to make men feel clearly how far superior in every respect in the synthesis founded on the love of humanity to that founded on the love of God." In other words, love of mankind is superior to love of, of God, or what is known as God.

Prabhupāda: The humanity, love of humanity means to raise the humanity to the real understanding of the goal of life. If the humanity or the whole human society kept into darkness as to what is the goal of life, that is not serving humanity, to keep them in darkness. But to enlighten them with knowledge, the ultimate knowledge is understanding of God and our relationship with God and activities in that relationship, that is real humanitarian work. Otherwise, if we keep the humanity in darkness, only within the jurisdiction of eating, sleeping, mating, and defending, or that is, that means to keep them in, in the animal atmosphere. But to teach the humanity about real knowledge, that he is not this body, he is soul, the soul is within the body and the nature of the soul, the necessity of the soul, the goal of soul—these things, if actually taken into hand to enlighten the humanity—that is real service to the humanity. And to keep them in darkness in the animal propensities, that is no service to the humanity.

Page Title:Worship of God is reserved for God only, not for anyone else. But the exchange, cooperation, between men and women for worshiping God, that is essential. Not that woman should be worshiped like God, or man should be worshiped like God
Compiler:Krsnadas
Created:23 of Oct, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=1, Con=0, Let=0
No. of Quotes:1