People do not understand the meaning of Brahman worship their belief as real God.+

People think God is somewhere, up there, monitoring every act of the people, guiding the lost and uplifting the poor. God is the one who punishes the evil and rewards the benevolent.

Some people even claim of seeing them in stone idols or some conceptual belief, in inanimate or living things. Is it our faith that makes us believe that there is some supreme power above us or is it a reality, that can never be answered?  

Until this conviction is there one is in the grip of the dualistic illusion. The dualistic illusion keeps one in ignorance of our true existence.  Therefore, there is a need to verify the fact that the ‘Self ‘, is not you but it is the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness. 

 When you become aware of the fact that, the ‘Self’ is the Soul, then you realize the fact that whatever is known, seen, believed, and experienced on the base of the false self is an illusion.

You are the false self within the false experience.  You are not the Self because you are the birth entity whereas the Soul, the innermost Self is birthless and deathless.  The Soul is birthless and deathless because it is the ever formless, timeless, and spaceless existence.

From the standpoint of the Soul, the Self, you and your experience of the world and your religion and your religious God and your accumulated knowledge is false knowledge because the waking experience is merely an illusion.

God is not he or she God is the Spirit. Do not physicalize God's worship. Such worship of non-Vedic Gods is barred by Vedas. All God with forms and attributes are not God in truth.

When Upanishads and Vedas say, “God is in the form of the Athma, and God is indeed Athma itself” then why accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman. 

Remember:~

There is neither Shiva nor Shakti but only consciousness. Consciousness is God in truth.  All belief-based Gods are not God in truth. 

The Vedas talk about Brahman which refers to the ultimate truth or ultimate reality. The consciousness is the ultimate truth, therefore, the consciousness is Brahman and Brahman is God.

Vedas do not permit idol worship. All the idols are of the Puranic Gods priests are referring to the Puranic Brahma as God they are ignorant of the God in Vedas even though they speak of Vedas.

People do not understand the meaning of Brahman worship their inherited blind belief based God as real. 

Realize what God suppose to be in truth. 

Lord Krishna says Ch ~V: ~ “Those who know the Self in truth.". The last two words (tattvataha) are usually ignored by pundits, but they make all the difference between the ordinary concept of God and the truth about God.

The dualistic worship of "God” is only for the ignorant populace. The God in truth is only Atman, the innermost Self. In reality, there is no duality, no differentiation. Only Atman exists.

Bhagavad Gita: ~ Brahmano hi pratisthaham ~ Brahman (God) is considered the all-pervading consciousness, which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. (14.27).

When Bhagavad Gita says, God is considered the all-pervading consciousness which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material then nothing has to be accepted as God other than consciousness.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter: ~ “All those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires, they worship many Gods. (7- Verse -20)

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says:~ "He who worships the deities as entities entirely separate from the Self does not know the truth. For the Gods, he is like a pasu (beast)". (1. 4. 10)

Max Müller says: ~ “The religion of the Veda knows no idols; the worship of idols in India is a secondary formation, a degradation of the more primitive worship of ideal Gods."

Hindus are idol worshipers of the large numbers of Gods and Goddesses whereas Vedas declare God is ‘ONE’ and that God is Atman.

Yajurveda – chapter- 32:~  God is Supreme Spirit has no ‘Pratima’ (idol) or material shape. God cannot be seen directly by anyone. God pervades all beings and all directions. 

Thus, Idolatry does not find any support from the Vedas.

Rig Veda: ~ 'Prajnanam Brahma'- Consciousness is the ultimate reality or Brahman or God in truth.

Do not accept any other God other than the Soul. The Soul is God in truth,  Nothing is real but the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness. Nothing matters but realizing God in truth. God in truth is everywhere and in everything. Let these words be inscribed in your subconscious.

God in truth is hidden by the illusory universe. God in truth alone is real and eternal and all else is an illusion.

Brahman is merely a word to indicate the ultimate truth or God in truth.  The ultimate truth itself is God in truth. 

Rig Veda: ~ The Atman is the cause; Atman is the support of all that exists in this universe. May ye never turn away from the Atman the  Self. May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman?" (10:48, 5)

Rig-Veda 1-164-46 and Y.V 32-1 clearly mention that God is “One”.

Rig Veda declares God is ‘ONE’ and that God is Atman, then why believe and worship anything else in place of real God.

Thus, Atman the Self is God. Thus,  Self-realization is real worship. Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is necessary to get realization.

Hindus are idol worshipers of the large numbers of Gods and Goddesses whereas Vedas declare God is ‘ONE’ and that God is Atman.

Chandogya Upanishad Chapter: ~ ekam evadvitiyam ~ God is only one without a second. (6- Section- 2- Verse- 1)

According to Vedas the Atman the Self is God.

Shiv is not Vedic God. All the God s and Goddesses with form, name, and attributes belong to Hinduism, not of the Vedic religion or Santana Dharma.

God and Goddesses are religious concepts. Whatever is seen, known, believed, and experienced as a person within the dualistic illusion (world) is a falsehood.

Thus, it refers to a formless and attributeless God, which is the Atman (Soul), the innermost ‘‘Self’’ within the false experience. Thus, it indicates clearly all the Gods with form and attributes are mere imaginations based on the false self’.  Thus, Atman or the Soul, the innermost Self is God.

The Vedas do not talk about idol worship. In fact, till about 2000 years ago followers of Vedism never worshiped idols. Idol worship was started by the followers of Buddhism and Jains. There is logic to idol worship. Vedas speak of one God that is the supreme  Self i.e. Atman or Soul but Hinduism indulges in worshiping 60 million Gods.

It indicates clearly all the Gods with form and attributes are mere imaginations based on the false self.

The Vedas as a body of scripture contains many contradictions and they are fragmentary in nature. For Hindus, scriptures like the Bhagavad-Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Puranas are more attractive and appealing than the Vedas. And also the Gods and Goddesses they worship differ considerably from the Vedic ones. The collection of hymns called Vedas that are written in praise of certain deities by poets over several centuries does not seem to have much significance for the Hindus.

Yajur Veda says: ~

Translation 1

They enter darkness, those who worship natural things (for example air, water, sun, moon, animals, fire, stone, etc).

They sink deeper into darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc.) (Yajurveda 40:9)

Translation 2

Deep into the shade of blinding gloom fall asambhuti's worshippers. They sink to darkness deeper yet who on sambhuti are intent." (Yajurveda Samhita by Ralph T. H. Griffith pg 538)

Translation 3

"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time." (Yajurveda 40:9.)

So, Yajur Veda indicates: ~They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc. 

Those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time."

Rig Veda says God is ‘ONE’ and that God is Atman, then why believe and worship anything else in place of real God.

Thus, Atman is the 'Self'. is God in truth. Thus, the Self -realization is real worship. Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is necessary to get realization.

To acquire  Self -knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana, the seeker has to realize his inherited religion is adulterated in the past and it becomes a great obstacle is realizing the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth.

The seeker's aim is the search for the ultimate truth or Brahman. The search to find the non-dualistic or Advaitic truth that in actuality never was lost, only hidden.

Upanishad aspiration is best expressed in the following sutra: ~

Om Asato ma sad gaMaya, tamaso ma jyotir gaMaya, mrityor ma aamritaam gaMaya. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

OM Lead me from ignorance to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality. Peace, Peace, Peace" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. (1/3/28)).

Religion was coherent because it had a transcendent individualized God as a central doctrine, whereas in the realm of truth individualized God cannot be considered as the center. After all, the Soul and the Self is the center of all that exists.

First, one should not hold a God as the center of existence without verification. Both the theist and atheist are theories, with nothing to do with ultimate truth or Brahman. 

Bible says: ~ “God is a Spirit, and they that worship God must worship  God in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24) 

The Spirit is the root element of the universe. The Spirit is present in the form of the Soul, the innermost Self. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness.  From the Spirit, the universe comes into existence. In the Spirit, the universe resides. And into the Spirit,  the universe is dissolved.   The Spirit is the parent of all that is there.

If God is the formless spirit, then how does man know God created the world? There is no proof. If man had seen God creating the world, he could admit it, but how could he have seen God before he came into existence? (i.e. were created). 

The Soul is the Goal. The Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness, is the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth. :~Santthosh Kumaar