शिवज्ञानबोध (मेय्कण्डार - शैव सिद्धान्त का आधारभूत दार्शनिक सूत्र ग्रन्थ)

SIXTH SUTRA. 67
as He, as it were, lies behind us, lives in us, part of our very be-
ing. Sivagnana Siddhi summarises the resasons thus :
" God cannot be perceived by the Human intelligence as He
is not separate from the soul, as He illumines its intelligence,
makes it understand whatever it thinks about, and as He has no
such pride as I and mine, everything being in Him."
(b) and (d) and (e). Maya is object. Soul is subject. The
object cannot perceive the subject ; otherwise the subject will
become the object and the object subject. God is true subject,
and Maya and Soul are objects and hence Maya and Soul cannot
perceive God. The subject receives further elaboration in the
next Sutra.
(c) This verse discusses the various conceptions of God by
the Yogis, and they are reduced to either mere idols of the human
mind or fiction or nonentity, in all of which cases, the meditation
of God will bring no profit whatever. When the highest concep-
tions of God in the Yoga philosophy are thus declared to be mere
material idols or myths, it need not be pointed out that any re-
presentation of the Unknown and the Inconceivable by either the
eye or the ear or any other human senses will be equally mate-
rial conceptions and fruitless. This then is our real reason for
the objection taken to all forms of idolatory. The religions ordi-
narily professing hatred of idolatry are based on such narrow
philosophic foundations that they simply object to the idols of the
eye—namely pictures and statues, &c., but their ordinary concep-
tions of God conveyed by the language and sound is equally gross
and idolatrous. If you object to a male representation of God in
gold or marble as your Father and to a worship of the same, why
do you call Him ‘Our Father’ and ‘Our Lord’ and repeat other
names which are mere idols of the ear, and what benefit would it
bring you the worship of these mere names ? If you object to
locate the picture of the eye in a temple, why do you build Him