Vaishnavas say that Narayana alone should be worshipped and Shaivas say that Sh

[dattaswami]

Vaishnavas say that Narayana alone should be worshipped and Shaivas say that Shiva alone should be worshipped.  Is it correct?

Ans) If this means that God alone should be worshipped and no concentration should be on the world, it is correct opinion of the original founder of any religion.  But unfortunately, this statement is twisted by the followers to mean that you should not worship the form of God of other religion. The original statement recommends to you to hate the world so that your devotion to Narayana or Shiva is a single concentration or Eka Bhakati (Refer to Jesus in Bible, who says to hate the worldly bonds). Unable to do this, people twisted this statement to hate Shiva or Narayana, which is convenient. Hatred is inherent quality of the soul, but hatred to the worldly bonds is impossible. Now, the misinterpretation satisfies the souls to implement the inherent quality conveniently diverted to other item like Narayana or Shiva.

The energetic form of upper world like Narayana or Shiva is made a scapegoat for hatred because there is no worldly item, which can be hated by all forever.  If you cannot break the walls of rooms in your house to make it a big hall, how can you break the walls between houses to make the biggest hall?  If you cannot achieve the unity in diversity in the sub-religions of Hinduism, how can you achieve the Universal Spirituality in this world to achieve world peace?  Narayana and Shiva are the energetic forms of God in the upper worlds meant for the departed souls existing in energetic bodies.  For the souls existing in materialized bodies on this earth, God in human form is relevant.  God enters the common medium of the souls for their convenience.

 Hanuman and Gopikas worshipped their contemporary human forms of God (Rama and Krishna).  Are you wiser than Hanuman and Gopikas to worship the irrelevant energetic forms of God?  You cannot deny this fact of history of scriptures and you cannot show a single instance where they left Rama and Krishna and worshipped Narayana.  In fact, Veda says that Shiva and Narayana are the same one God (Shivashcha Narayanah.., Ekohavai Narayanah…., Eko Rudronadvitiyaya…. Veda).  In fact, Narayana means the source of spiritual knowledge and Shiva means sacred. The contemporary human incarnation (Sadguru) is the source of spiritual knowledge and hence is Narayana (Naara= knowledge; Ayana= source).  A Sadguru is associated with the three qualities (good Sattvam, bad Rajas and Tamas). But still He is beyond all these three qualities and is sacred and hence He is called as Shiva.