A DEVOTEE: “Has God a form or is He formless?”
MASTER: “God has form and, again. He is formless. Once upon a time a sannyasi entered the temple of Jagannath. As he looked at the holy image he debated within himself whether God had a form or was formless. He passed his staff from left to right to feel whether it touched the image. The staff touched nothing. He understood that there was no image before him; he concluded that God was formless. Next he passed the staff from right to left. It touched the image. The sannyasi understood that God had form Thus he realised that God has form and, again, is formless.
“But it is extremely difficult to understand this. Naturally the doubt arises in the mind: if God is formless, how then can He have form? Further, if He has a form, why does He have so many forms?” (BG 12.5)
DOCTOR: “God has created all these forms in the world; therefore He Himself has a form. Again, He has created the mind; therefore He is formless. It is possible for God to be everything.”
MASTER: ‘These things do not become clear until one has realised God. He assumes different forms and reveals Himself in different ways for the sake of His devotees. A man kept a solution of dye in a tub. Many people came to him to have their clothes dyed. He would ask a customer, ‘What colour should you like to have your cloth dyed?’ If the customer wanted red, then the man would dip the cloth in the tub and say, ‘Here is your cloth dyed red.’ If another customer wanted his cloth dyed yellow, the man would dip his cloth in the same tub and say, ‘Here is your cloth dyed yellow.’ If a customer wanted his cloth dyed blue, the man would dip it in the same tub and say, ‘Here is your cloth dyed blue.’ Thus he would dye the clothes of his customers different colours, dipping them all in the same solution. One of the customers watched all this with amazement. The man asked him, ‘Well? What colour do you want for your cloth?’ The customer said, ‘Brother, dye my cloth the colour of the dye in your tub.’ (Laughter.)
“Once a man went into a wood and saw a beautiful creature on a tree. Later he told a friend about it and said, ‘Brother, on a certain tree in the wood I saw a red-coloured creature.’ The friend answered: ‘I have seen it too. Why do you call it red? It is green.’ A third man said: ‘Oh, no, no! Why do you call it green? It is yellow.’ Then other persons began to describe the animal variously as violet, blue, or black. Soon they were quarrelling about the colour. At last they went to the tree and found a man sitting under it. In answer to their questions he said: ‘I live under this tree and know the creature very well. What each of you has said about it is true. Sometimes it is red, sometimes green, sometimes yellow, sometimes blue, and so forth and so on. Again, sometimes I see that it has no colour whatsoever.’
“Only he who constantly thinks of God can know His real nature. He alone knows that God reveals Himself in different forms and different ways, that He has attributes and, again, has none. Only the man who lives under the tree knows that the chameleon can assume various colours and that sometimes it remains colourless. Others, not knowing the whole truth, quarrel among themselves and suffer.
“Yes, God has form and, again. He has none. Do you know how it is? Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, is like a shoreless ocean. In the ocean visible blocks of ice are formed here and there by intense cold. Similarly, under the cooling influence, so to speak, of the bhakti of Its worshippers, the Infinite transforms Itself into the finite and appears before the worshipper as God with form. That is to say, God reveals Himself to His bhaktas as an embodied Person. Again, as, on the rising of the sun, the ice in the ocean melts away, so, on the awakening of jnana, the embodied God melts back into the infinite and formless Brahman.”
DOCTOR: “Yes. When the sun is up, the ice melts; and what is more, the heat of the sun turns the water into invisible vapour.”
MASTER: “Yes, that is true. As a result of the discrimination that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory, the aspirant goes into samadhi. Then, for him, the forms or attributes of God disappear altogether. Then he does not feel God to be a Person. Then he cannot describe in words what God is. And who will describe it? He who is to describe does not exist at all; he no longer finds his ‘I’. To such a person Brahman is attributeless. In that state God is experienced only as Consciousness, by man’s inmost consciousness. He cannot be comprehended by the mind and intelligence.
“Therefore people compare bhakti, love of God, to the cooling light of the moon, and jnana, knowledge, to the burning rays of the sun. I have heard that there are oceans in the extreme north and extreme south where the air is so cold that it freezes the water into huge blocks of ice here and there. Ships cannot move there; they are stopped by the ice.”
DOCTOR: “Then in the path of bhakti the aspirant meets with obstacles.”
MASTER : “Yes, that is true. But it does not cause the devotee any harm. After all, it is the water of the Ocean of Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, that is frozen into ice. It will not injure you if you continue to reason, saying, for instance, that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. This reasoning will awaken in you jnana, which, like the sun, will melt the ice of divine forms hack into the infinite Ocean of Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute.
“In the samadhi that comes at the end of reasoning and discrimination, no such thing as ‘I’ exists. But it is extremely difficult to attain it; ‘I-consciousness’ lingers so persistently. That is why a man is born again and again in this world.
“The cow suffers so much because she says, ‘Hamba! Hamba!’, that is, ‘I! I!’ She is yoked to the plough all day long, rain or shine. Or she is slaughtered by the butcher. But even that doesn’t put an end to her misery. The cobbler tans her hide to make shoes from it. At last the carder makes a string for his bow from her entrails and uses the string in carding; then it says, ‘Tuhu! Tuhu!’, that is, ‘Thou! Thou!’ Only then does the cow’s suffering come to an end.
“Likewise, only when a man says: ‘Not I! Not I! I am nobody. O Lord, Thou art the Doer and I am Thy servant; Thou art the Master’, is he freed from all sufferings; only then is he liberated.”
DOCTOR: “But one must fall into the hands of the carder.” (All laugh.)
MASTER: “If this ego cannot be got rid of, then let the rascal remain as the servant of God. (All laugh.) (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
Once during my college days when I (Swami Vijnanananda) went to visit the Master at Dakshineswar, I asked him, “Is God with form or without form?” The Master replied: “God is with form as well as without form, and again he is beyond both form and formlessness.” Then I asked, “If God is all, is this cot also God?” He answered emphatically, “Yes, this cot is God, this glass, this utensil, this wall — everything is God.” As he spoke, I experienced an inner transformation and was lifted beyond the realm of ordinary consciousness. My heart was illumined, and I saw the light of Brahman everywhere. (Source: God Lived with Them)
A Related Story: The Salt Doll
Once, a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. The other dolls warned it, “Don’t go too far, or you will disappear!” But the salt doll was determined to know how deep the ocean was.
As it walked into the waves, its body began to dissolve. As it became one with the water, it could no longer say, “I am measuring the ocean,” because there was no longer a separate “I” (the doll) to report back. It had become the ocean itself.
The Lesson: This story illustrates the experience of Samadhi (the state of absorption). As long as we have an ego (“I”), we see God as a separate person or form. When the ego dissolves into the “Ocean” of the divine, the distinction between the “worshipper” and the “Worshipped” vanishes, and the soul realizes the formless Absolute.
1. The Blind Men and the Elephant (Jain / Buddhist / Sufi Tradition)
This is perhaps the most famous parable about human perception and the infinite nature of the Divine.
Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of its body.
- The one who felt the leg said, “An elephant is like a pillar.”
- The one who felt the tail said, “An elephant is like a rope.”
- The one who felt the trunk said, “An elephant is like a thick snake.”
- The one who felt the ear said, “An elephant is like a giant fan.”
- The one who felt the belly said, “An elephant is like a huge wall.”
- The one who felt the tusk said, “An elephant is like a sharp spear.”
They began to argue fiercely, each convinced the others were lying. A wise man passing by stopped and said, “You are all right, and you are all wrong. The elephant has all these features, but you are each only feeling one small part of the whole.”
The Meaning: The “Elephant” is the infinite, formless Divine. Because the human mind is limited, we can only grasp the Divine in specific, localized forms or attributes (a creator, a judge, a specific deity). We argue over whose “form” of God is correct, failing to realize that all forms are just partial expressions of the same formless, infinite reality.
The Wave and the Ocean (Advaita Vedanta)
This simple analogy is frequently used by Vedantic teachers to explain the relationship between the individual soul, the personal God, and the formless Absolute.
A small wave in the ocean was bobbing along, enjoying the sunshine. Suddenly, it looked ahead and saw the shore. Terrified, it cried out to a larger wave nearby, “This is terrible! Look what’s going to happen to us! We’re going to crash into the shore and be destroyed!”
The larger wave looked at the panicked little wave and smiled. “You don’t understand,” the large wave said. “You aren’t a wave. You are water.”
The Meaning: The “wave” is a temporary form (Saguna). It has a shape, a size, and a lifespan. But the essence of the wave is “water,” which is vast, shapeless, and eternal (Nirguna). The story teaches that while forms arise and dissolve, the underlying formless essence remains unchanged. God takes on the “form” of a wave so we can relate to it, but the reality is the ocean.
3. Saint Namdev and the Dog (Indian Bhakti Tradition)
This story shifts the focus from philosophy to pure devotion, illustrating what happens when someone truly realizes that the formless God resides within all forms.
Saint Namdev was a great devotee of Lord Vitthala (a form of Krishna). He spent hours every day worshiping the idol in the temple. One day, Namdev was sitting outside cooking flatbreads (rotis) over a fire. Suddenly, a stray, mangy dog ran up, snatched a hot, dry roti in its mouth, and bolted away.
Instead of getting angry or chasing the dog with a stick, Namdev grabbed a bowl of clarified butter (ghee) and ran after the dog, weeping and crying out, “Lord! Please stop! Don’t eat the roti dry, it will hurt your stomach! Let me spread some ghee on it for you!”
The Meaning: Namdev had transcended the need to see God only in the specific, beautiful form of the temple idol. He had realized the formless spirit (Nirguna) so deeply that he began to see it animating every form (Saguna)—even a starving street dog. It shows that realizing the formless doesn’t mean rejecting forms; it means honoring all forms equally.
Here are four more classic stories from various traditions that explore the relationship between the formless infinite and the finite forms we use to understand it.
Moses and the Shepherd (Sufi Tradition)
This famous story by the Persian poet Rumi illustrates how God accommodates whatever “form” a devotee’s heart needs.
One day, the prophet Moses heard a shepherd praying aloud: “O God, where are You? I want to help You. I want to comb Your hair, wash Your clothes, pick the lice from Your head, and bring You milk to drink. I want to kiss Your hands and rub Your tired feet.”
Moses was horrified. He scolded the shepherd, saying, “You are speaking blasphemy! God is spirit. He has no body, no hair, no need for milk or clothes. Your words are an insult to the Almighty!” The shepherd, realizing his ignorance, wept bitterly, tore his clothes, and fled into the desert.
Suddenly, God spoke to Moses: “Why have you driven My servant away? You came to connect people to Me, not to separate them. I do not look at the form of the words; I look at the love in the heart. To you, his words sounded wrong, but to him, they were pure devotion. I am beyond all forms, but I accept whatever form of love is offered.”
The Meaning: The intellect understands God as formless, infinite, and beyond human needs. But the heart often needs a relatable form (a friend, a master, a child) to pour out its love. The Divine accepts the Saguna (form-based) devotion just as much as the Nirguna (formless) understanding.
The Space in the Jar (Vedantic Philosophy)
This is an ancient analogy used by sages to explain how the infinite, formless reality seems to become localized into individual forms.
Imagine the vast, limitless sky. This is universal space (Mahakasha). Now, a potter builds a clay jar. Suddenly, there appears to be “space inside the jar” (Ghatakasha) and “space outside the jar.” The space inside the jar seems limited. It takes the shape of the jar. If you move the jar, the space inside seems to move with it.
But has the space itself actually been cut, shaped, or moved? No. The space remains perfectly untouched and formless. Only the clay boundary gives the illusion of a separate, formed entity. When the jar eventually breaks, the “inside space” doesn’t have to travel anywhere to rejoin the “outside space.” It was always one whole.
The Meaning: The clay jar represents our physical bodies and the forms of the universe. The space is the formless Divine. God takes on the shape of a person, a deity, or an object, but the inner essence remains infinite and untouched by the boundaries of the form.
3. The Gold and the Ornaments (The Upanishads)
This is one of the oldest philosophical metaphors in Indian spirituality, found in the Chandogya Upanishad.
A father is teaching his son about the ultimate reality. He asks his son to look at a gold ring, a gold bracelet, and a gold necklace.
“The ring has a specific shape and a name,” the father says. “The bracelet has a different shape and a different name. If you melt them down, the names and forms (Nama-Rupa) disappear. What remains? Only gold. The forms are temporary and exist only for our use and delight, but the truth of all of them is just gold.”
The Meaning: You cannot wear “pure gold” until it is shaped into an ornament. Similarly, the human mind struggles to grasp the “pure formless Absolute.” It is easier for us to relate to God when the Divine is shaped into specific names and forms (like Krishna, Christ, Shiva, or Divine Mother). The forms are real and useful, but the underlying substance of all of them is the one formless reality.
Here are four more stories deeply rooted in Indian spiritual traditions that explore how the infinite, formless Absolute (Nirguna) interacts with the localized, personal forms of God (Saguna).
1. Tulsidas and the Flute (Bhakti Tradition)
Goswami Tulsidas was a great poet-saint and a fiercely devoted follower of Lord Rama. One day, he visited the holy city of Vrindavan and was taken to a famous temple of Lord Krishna.
Standing before the beautiful idol of Krishna holding a flute, Tulsidas folded his hands but did not bow down. He said, “O Lord, I know perfectly well that You are the one infinite, formless reality who takes all shapes. There is no difference between You and my Lord Rama. But my heart has already been sold. I will only bow my head when You take up the bow and arrow.”
According to the legend, the idol miraculously transformed right before his eyes—the flute became a bow, and Krishna appeared as Rama to satisfy the saint’s pure devotion.
The Meaning: The formless Divine is entirely malleable to the pure love of the devotee. God is not rigid or bound by any single shape; the Absolute willingly condenses into the exact form (Saguna) that the devotee’s heart requires for its spiritual expression.
2. Prahlada and the Pillar (The Puranas)
The demon king Hiranyakashipu was enraged by his son Prahlada’s constant devotion to Lord Vishnu. The king believed himself to be the supreme power and demanded to know where this “Vishnu” was hiding.
“He is everywhere, Father,” Prahlada replied. “He is the formless reality within all things.”
Furious, the king pointed to a solid stone pillar in the palace hall. “Is your omnipresent God in this pillar?”
“Yes,” Prahlada answered calmly.
Hiranyakashipu drew his sword and smashed the pillar. Instantly, the pillar split open, and Vishnu burst forth in a terrifying, never-before-seen form—Narasimha, a half-man, half-lion—to destroy the arrogant king and protect Prahlada.
The Meaning: God is completely formless and omnipresent, existing invisibly within the stone. However, the Divine will spontaneously manifest into a spectacular, tangible form to protect, interact with, and validate the faith of a true devotee.
3. Hanuman’s Three Perspectives (The Ramayana Tradition)
This story beautifully bridges the gap between worshiping a form and realizing the formless truth.
After the great war in Lanka, Lord Rama sat with his closest devotees. He turned to Hanuman, his greatest servant, and asked a profound question: “Hanuman, how do you look upon me? What is our relationship?”
Hanuman replied with a deeply insightful verse:
“When I identify with my physical body, I am Your faithful servant, and You are my Master with form.
When I identify as an individual soul (Jiva), I am a tiny spark of light, and You are the infinite fire.
But when I rest in my true nature as the Formless Self (Atman), You and I are exactly the same.”
The Meaning: This perfectly maps the human spiritual journey. We often begin by needing a physical form to serve (Dualism), progress to feeling like a piece of the divine whole, and ultimately realize the formless, non-dual truth (Advaita) where the illusion of separation completely dissolves.
4. The Ant and the Sugar Mountain (Sri Ramakrishna)
Sri Ramakrishna often used this very simple, humorous parable to explain how human beings interact with the infinite.
Two ants discovered a massive mountain of sugar. The first ant ate a single grain, immediately felt completely full, grabbed one more grain in its mouth, and scurried home. As it walked away, it thought to itself, “Next time, I will carry the whole mountain back!”
The second ant, who was a bit larger, ate two grains, felt completely full, took one home, and thought the exact same thing: “Tomorrow, I’ll take the rest of the mountain.” Both ants were entirely satisfied, yet both were utterly foolish to think they could comprehend or carry away the mountain.
The Meaning: The “Mountain of Sugar” is the infinite, formless Absolute (Brahman). The “grain” is the specific form or aspect of God we can actually comprehend. A devotee might experience God in a specific form, feel complete spiritual fulfillment, and achieve liberation. But it is ignorance to claim that their specific “grain” is all there is, or that they have grasped the entirety of the infinite. We take the form we can digest, while the formless remains inexhaustible.
Here are four more classic stories from the heart of Indian spiritual philosophy that beautifully illustrate the dynamic between the formless infinite and the physical forms we see and worship.
1. The Seed of the Banyan Tree (The Upanishads)
This story from the Chandogya Upanishad is an ancient conversation between the sage Uddalaka and his arrogant son, Shvetaketu, who thought he had learned everything from books but missed the ultimate truth.
Uddalaka asked his son to bring him a fruit from the massive banyan tree nearby.
“Here it is, father,” Shvetaketu said.
“Break it open,” the sage instructed. “What do you see?”
“Tiny seeds, father. Extremely small.”
“Break open one of those seeds,” Uddalaka said. “Now, what do you see?”
Shvetaketu peered closely and said, “Nothing at all, father. It is completely empty inside.”
Uddalaka smiled. “My son, that subtle essence which you cannot see—that ‘nothingness’—is the very power that gives rise to this massive banyan tree. The invisible, formless essence is the reality of all things. And you are That.”
The Meaning: The formless Divine (Nirguna Brahman) is like the invisible essence inside the seed. It cannot be seen, touched, or measured by the senses, yet it is the animating force that causes the entire universe of forms to exist.
2. Totapuri and the Divine Mother (Sri Ramakrishna’s Life)
Sri Ramakrishna had a teacher named Totapuri, a fiercely strict monk of the Advaita Vedanta tradition. Totapuri believed only in the formless Absolute. He scoffed at Ramakrishna’s devotion to the statue of Mother Kali, calling it mere superstition and “worshiping a piece of stone.”
One day, Totapuri contracted a severe case of dysentery. The pain was so excruciating that he could no longer meditate on the formless Brahman. Unable to bear the agony, he decided to drown himself in the Ganges River. He walked into the water, expecting it to get deep enough to submerge him. But miraculously, he walked all the way across to the other bank, and the water never rose above his knees.
Standing on the opposite shore, stunned, he suddenly had a blinding realization: the river, his body, the pain, the waking world—it was all the conscious play of the Divine Mother. He realized that the formless Brahman and the Mother with form were the exact same entity.
The Meaning: Sri Ramakrishna later explained this using a brilliant analogy: Fire and its burning power. You cannot separate fire (the formless) from its power to burn (the form/energy). They are one. To dismiss the forms of the universe as “illusion” while trying to hold onto the formless is like trying to separate the heat from the flame.
3. The Spider and its Web (The Mundaka Upanishad)
When ancient seekers asked how a perfectly formless God could create a universe of solid forms without changing or losing any part of itself, the sages gave this simple metaphor.
Look at a spider. When it wants to build a web, it does not go out looking for lumber, bricks, or mortar. It pulls the silk directly out of its own body. It weaves the web, travels across the threads it created, and when the time is right, it consumes the web back into itself.
The Meaning: God does not act like a carpenter building a table out of wood (where the creator and the material are separate). Instead, the formless Divine projects the universe of forms out of Its own essence, plays within those forms, and eventually dissolves them back into the formless state. God is both the Creator and the raw material of creation.
4. The Rivers and the Ocean (The Upanishads)
This is a poetic metaphor used to describe what happens to our individual forms and identities when we realize the ultimate formless truth.
Look at the great rivers of India—the Ganges, the Yamuna, the Brahmaputra, the Godavari. While they flow across the land, they have distinct names, different shapes, different currents, and different colors of water. They are entirely separate entities with their own “forms.”
But the moment they pour into the ocean, what happens? They lose their names and their forms (Nama-Rupa). You can no longer point to a cup of water in the ocean and say, “This is the Ganges” or “This is the Yamuna.”
The Meaning: The individual soul (Jiva) and its chosen personal deity (Ishta Devata) both have beautiful, distinct forms while we are on the spiritual journey. But in the ultimate state of liberation (Moksha), the ego and the forms dissolve into the infinite, formless Absolute, just as rivers lose their borders when they meet the sea.
Here are four more stories from Indian spiritual traditions. These stories specifically address the tension between worshiping a physical form and understanding the formless reality behind it.
1. Yashoda and the Universe in Krishna’s Mouth (The Puranas)
This is one of the most beloved stories from the childhood of Lord Krishna, beautifully illustrating how the infinite, formless universe can be contained within a tiny, physical form.
When Krishna was a toddler playing in the courtyard, some of the other children ran to his mother, Yashoda, and complained that Krishna had been eating dirt. Yashoda rushed over, scolded him, and demanded, “Open your mouth! Let me see what you have eaten.”
Little Krishna opened his mouth. But Yashoda did not see dirt. Instead, she looked inside and saw the entire cosmos. She saw the sun, the moon, the stars, the galaxies, the oceans, the mountains, and the wind. She even saw herself, standing in the courtyard in Vrindavan, looking into her son’s mouth.
Overwhelmed and terrified by this glimpse of the infinite, she nearly fainted. Instantly, Krishna closed his mouth, smiled his sweet, childish smile, and Yashoda immediately forgot the vision, returning to her motherly love for her little boy.
The Meaning: The finite form (Saguna) is not separate from the infinite formless Absolute (Nirguna). A specific form of God may look small, localized, and human, but it contains the entirety of the infinite universe within it.
2. Swami Vivekananda and the Maharaja’s Portrait
During his wandering days across India, Swami Vivekananda visited the court of the Maharaja of Alwar. The Maharaja was heavily influenced by Western rationalism and openly mocked the Hindu practice of idol worship. “Swamiji,” the King laughed, “these people worship pieces of stone, clay, and metal. It is absolute foolishness. God is formless.”
Vivekananda didn’t argue. Instead, he looked at a large, beautiful portrait of the Maharaja hanging on the wall. He asked the King’s Diwan (Prime Minister) to take the painting down.
“Now,” Vivekananda commanded the Diwan, “spit on it.”
The Diwan was horrified. “Swamiji! What are you saying? This is our beloved King!”
“It is not your King,” Vivekananda replied calmly. “It is just a piece of paper with some colors on it. It cannot speak, it cannot move, it is not alive. Spit on it.”
The Diwan refused, trembling. “To insult this image is to insult the King himself!”
Vivekananda turned to the Maharaja and smiled. “See, Your Highness? Though this paper is not you, it completely brings you to the minds of your subjects. The same is true for the devotees. The stone idol is not God, but it brings the presence, love, and attributes of the formless God directly into the devotee’s heart.”
The Meaning: Forms, idols, and symbols are psychological necessities for most human beings. We use the finite form as a doorway to access the infinite, formless reality.
3. The Butter Hidden in the Milk (Vedanta)
A spiritual seeker once approached a sage, deeply frustrated. “You say God is formless and omnipresent, existing everywhere and in everything. If that is true, why can’t I see Him? Why do I have to go to a temple or meditate on a specific form?”
The sage asked his disciples to bring a bowl of fresh milk. He placed it before the seeker and asked, “Do you believe there is butter in this milk?”
“Yes,” the seeker replied. “Everyone knows milk contains butter.”
“Can you show it to me?” the sage asked. “Can you point to the butter right now?”
“No,” the seeker admitted. “I can’t see it until the milk is churned.”
“Exactly,” the sage replied. “The butter is present in every single drop of the milk, yet it is invisible. But if you take a specific portion of the milk, add a culture to make yogurt, and churn it diligently, the butter will take form and float to the top. The formless God is present in every atom of the universe, but He manifests in a recognizable form only when the mind is ‘churned’ through devotion, meditation, and spiritual practice.”
The Meaning: Formless omnipresence does not mean immediate accessibility. Spiritual practices involving a specific name and form (the “churning”) are the tools we use to make the invisible reality tangible in our own experience.
4. The Movie and the Screen (Ramana Maharshi)
The great 20th-century sage Ramana Maharshi often updated ancient analogies using modern technology to explain the Advaita (non-dual) perspective.
When you go to a cinema, he explained, you sit in a dark room and watch a movie. On the screen, you see raging fires, violent storms, massive oceans, and thousands of people interacting. You get caught up in the drama of these changing forms.
But if you walk up to the front of the theater and touch the raging fire on the screen, your hand will not burn. If you touch the ocean, your hand will not get wet. You are only touching a blank, white, formless screen. The screen allows the fire, the water, and the people to exist, yet it remains completely unaffected by any of them. When the movie ends, the forms disappear, but the screen remains exactly as it was.
The Meaning: The “Screen” is the formless Divine (Brahman). The “Movie” is the universe of names and forms we interact with every day. The forms appear very real and elicit deep emotional reactions from us, but they are simply light playing upon the single, unchanging, formless reality.
Mirabai and the Strict Monk
Mirabai was a legendary Rajput princess and mystic poet who was fiercely devoted to Lord Krishna. After leaving her royal life, she traveled to Vrindavan, the holy city associated with Krishna’s youth.
Upon arriving, she wished to pay her respects to Jiva Goswami, the head of the main Vaishnava temple and a very strict monk. Goswami sent a message back refusing to see her. His vow as an ascetic was so strict that he refused to even look at a woman.
When Mirabai received the message, she laughed and sent a reply that pierced right through his theology:
“I thought Lord Krishna was the only true Purusha (the Supreme Formless Soul), and that every soul in the universe is Prakriti (the physical manifestation/feminine nature) yearning for Him. I did not realize there was another ‘man’ in Vrindavan besides Krishna!”
Upon reading her note, Jiva Goswami realized his immense foolishness. He had been so caught up in the physical forms of male and female bodies that he had forgotten the ultimate spiritual truth beneath them. He immediately rushed out barefoot to welcome Mirabai and bowed at her feet.
The Meaning: Getting caught up in the physical attributes of a form (gender, race, status) is a trap. True spiritual vision means looking directly through the physical body and seeing only the divine essence interacting with itself.
The Thread and the Pearls (The Bhagavad Gita)
In Chapter 7 of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna gives Prince Arjuna a brilliant visual metaphor to explain how His formless nature interacts with the countless forms in the universe.
”There is nothing higher than Me, O Arjuna,” Krishna says. “All of this universe is strung on Me, like pearls on a thread.”
The Meaning: When you look at a pearl necklace, what do you actually see? You only see the pearls. They might be large, small, white, pink, or black. You admire the pearls (the forms). But what actually makes it a necklace? It is the string hidden inside.
The string is entirely invisible. Yet, if you pull the string out, the pearls instantly scatter and fall to the ground; the necklace ceases to exist. Similarly, the formless Divine (Nirguna) is the invisible thread running through the center of every single atom, person, and planet. We only see the “pearls” (the physical forms), but without the formless reality holding them together from the inside, the entire universe would collapse.