GOD IS BOTH WITH FORM AND WITHOUT FORM

GOD IS BOTH WITH FORM AND WITHOUT FORM

God is both with form and without form. Illimitable are his attributes. Who can limit Him, the One who is the manifest and the transcendent? The Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj reject God's form. The Vedas they cite to validate their proposition. The Puranas they reject as scriptural authority. Hence, formless God is is their averment in line with their Vedic reading and understanding. Sri Ramakrishna, however, accepted God's infinitude by refusing to harbour any such limited view about He who is 'the source, course and estuary' of life. Sri Ramakrishna even realised God in His/Her multidimensional manifestation and singular transcendence. He so frequently saw the blissful form of the Divine Mother. He realised God/Goddess in diverse forms, and in the formless, with and without attributes. The doubts raised by Narendranath about God's forms were dispelled by the Master through visions rendered unto the disciple. Likewise would Dayananda Sarasvati and Rammohan Roy have been satisfied in their queries were they to encounter Ramakrishna in mature bloom. As it is such a meeting of minds did not take place and sectarianism of sorts which Ramakrishna was expressly against continues to prevail among the Hindus, albeit with lesser toxicity. But Islamic and Christian sectarianism abounds and threatens to tear apart the polity which the current ruling dispensation will hopefully thwart with their massive following and clear-cut ideology. Hindus at least should unite, cutting across petty theological differential lines which in the nature of things must remain in a pluralistic society. If the Vedas do not sanction the worship of images (prateek) and the Purânas do, so be it. In the Purânas has the Sanatan Dharma sought wholeness then and we must proudly bear such a comprehensive sweep of Sanatan thought in its evolutionary unfolding. 🕉 

Written by Sugata Bose