If a family member is treated as God and worshipped, will it be of any use?

[Ms.Laxmi Thrylokya asked:- If devotees think their family members as God and worship them, due to non-availability of God, will such treatment is of any use in the Spiritual line?]

Swami Replied:- Actually speaking there can’t be any real fruit for such assumption because the assumption is not real. If one uses kerosene in the food assuming it as ghee, will the person using kerosene as ghee get the real taste of ghee or the real medicinal use of ghee in the food? If there is any use in such assumption, Gopikas should not have run for Krishna because they can assume their family members as God and get benefit by worshipping them without taking any risk in reaching Krishna. Why did they leave their families and ran for Krishna? If Gopikas believed that their family members are God and worshipped them, their urge for God gets satisfied and they will not have special urge for God by which they can attain God at least in some birth or other. If the devotee is satisfied with the worship of representative mode of God assuming that the model itself is God, such worship is of no use and is moreover harmful since it pacifies the real urge for God that helps the soul even to reach God in that life itself since every generation is blessed by the contemporary human incarnation of God. It may give some satisfaction, but, since the assumption is totally unreal and since God is available in every generation, such satisfaction is not only useless but also harmful in pacifying the urge for God. Such worship will close the eyes of the devotees to recognise and reach the contemporary human incarnation of God.

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