In India, whenever someone worships, the deity is created.
For example, Ganesh: Ganesh is created - an image is created.
For the worship, the image is taken as Divine, so Divinity is invoked in it. Then, for particular days, for a particular length of time, it is worshipped.
When the worship is over, the deity has to be dissolved into the sea or into a river. That is known as dispersion - visarjan.
This is rare. This happens only in India, nowhere else in the world.
Everywhere else they have permanent images of gods. Only India has impermanent images. This is rare!
India says that nothing is permanent and nothing can remain permanent - not even your image of a god.
Because you have created it, it cannot be a permanent thing. Do not fool yourself.
When the time is over, go and throw it back. Your god cannot be permanent.
Go on throwing your gods - creating them and throwing them. Use them and throw them. Only then can you reach that God which is not your creation.
The images are your creations, so they have an instrumental value. They are devices. They are necessary because you are still so far away from the reality, and it is difficult for you to conceive of an imageless God.
Create an image, but do not stick to it. No clinging is allowed.
When the worship is over, throw it; throw it back into the mud. It is again mud. Then do not retain it. This is a very deep psychological process, because to throw a god needs courage, to throw a god needs detachment.
You were just worshipping - falling at the feet of the god, crying, weeping, dancing, singing - and now you yourself go and throw it into the sea. So it was just a device - nothing permanent in it.
You used it as an instrument. Now the worship is over, so throw it and create it again whenever you need.
This constant creating and throwing will always help you to remember that your created gods are not real gods. They are symbolic.....
First create the image, then uncreate it. It is not destroyed.
Visarjan means "uncreated". Create, then uncreate it; then let everything go again to its basic elements.
Hindus say death is a dispersion. You are created in your birth; you are a mud image. Then in death the elements move again to their original source.
You are dispersed, and that which was not born in you, which was even before your birth, will remain after your death. But your image will disperse......
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