# Formless Or Multi Form?



## CaramelChocolate (Feb 13, 2005)

*(70)** In this world, what is the greatest sin one can commit?
*[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]*Ans:* Shriji Maharaj has told us that to believe God as nirakar (formless) is the most atrocious crime. There is no sin worse than that. Because God exists, we exist. When one does not realize that, it is a terrible sin.[/font]


[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]*http://kids.swaminarayan.org/thingstoknow/70to72.htm#top *[/font]​*(71)** What is the punishment for committing such a sin?
*[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][font=Courier New, Courier, mono][/font]*Ans: *Misery. One is made to suffer the tortures of births and deaths. God’s form is divine; there are no exceptions. It is a terrible insult to perceive Him to be nirakar. He smiles, He talks, He walks, everything He does is divine, wonderful and pacifying. Whatever He does, He does for the benefit of others, not Himself. When He accepts gifts and praise from His devotees, He does not do so out of vanity or greed, but rather to encourage bhakti within us so that we develop affection for Him.[/font]

*Source: **http://kids.swaminarayan.org* 

This is not intended as a debate, but what do you Sikhs think of this traditional Hindu belief?


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## dattaswami (May 23, 2005)

*From Vacant Space To The Present Human Form*

The atheist says that God does not exist. For him God is nothing i.e., vacant space. This is the first stage. When he sees miracles he becomes the believer in God. He accepts God as some power or energy. The power or energy is also formless, like vacant space. So the concept of God is near to his previous concept and thus the atheist (Scientist) accepts the formless (Nirakara) God very easily. The third stage is God with form (Sakara). In this stage statues in the human form are introduced. The training is given to do the sixteen upacharas (services) to these statues in human form. This training indicates that they have to worship the God in human form in this way. The sixteen upacharas are actually related to the human form only. For eg: the first upachara ‘Aavahanam’ means invitation corresponds to the human being only and not to inert statue. The statue in the temple is better than the statue in your house. Why? Because in the temple the ‘Pranaprathista’ i.e., initiation of life is done to the statue. This again indicates that you have to worship the statue with life. The concept is the inert statue plus life is equal to human being. Therefore in the temple the statue indicates that you have to worship the statue with life i.e., the human form of God only. Like this you are slowly trained to worship the human form of the God by the sixteen upacharas. In this training when your egoism and jealousy is completely destroyed now the human form of the God is introduced. Unless your egoism and jealousy are completely destroyed you cannot accept the human form directly. So the worship of the inert statue in the human form introduces the concept of human form, then the initiation of life (Prana pratishta) introduces the concept of living human form. Thus this is a gradual transformation of you by reducing your egoism and jealousy. When your egoism and jealousy are completely removed, the final human form of God is introduced. Only a particular man like Lord Krishna is God. This is Advaita philosophy, which is extended to every man due to the same jealousy and egoism. If every man is God, nobody requires salvation.​​​​Like this when you are travelling from vacant space to formless energy or power then you are accepting the human form but without life which is a statue in your house. In the same stage you are accepting the statue plus life in the temple which means only a living human form. Finally you are catching the God in the present living human form. Whatever I preached here is having the best practical proof. Hanuman, the greatest of the human beings in this world worshipped Rama only who was a living human being in his time. He did not go down i.e.; he never meditated upon the formless God or the statues. In Valmiki Ramayana such things are not mentioned. He never worshipped even previous human incarnations like ‘Vamana’. He worshipped only the human incarnation present in his generation. Similarly Radha never worshipped ‘Rama’ but worshipped only Krishna who was the human incarnation of her generation. As per Bhagavatham Radha also never worshipped the statues or the formless God. Hanuman became Brahma and Radha became the queen of the 15th World ‘Goloka’. No body in this world will attain a better position than these two. So your spiritual journey must end in recognizing the human incarnation of God present in your generation. God is impartial and so He comes down in human form in every generation. If you say Lord Krishna is only the latest incarnation, then that generation was blessed and God became partial. Therefore God is coming in human form in every human generation. People are not recognizing Him because after the incarnation of Krishna the egoism and jealousy are growing continuously in all the human beings. The man did not recognize the God coming in human form after Krishna. After Krishna and before ‘Kalki’ is ‘Kaliyuga’. Due to the influence of the ‘Kali’ people are full of egoism and jealousy and so they cannot recognize the human form of God in ‘Kaliyuga’.​​​​God comes in different human forms in the same time in various levels for the sake of devotees in various levels. He comes as a schoolteacher for the school students, as a lecturer for the college students and as a Professor for the post graduate students. Since the school students and college students are large in number he comes down as a number of schoolteachers and college lecturers. Such incarnations are called as ‘Amsavataras’, which mean the incarnations of a small portion of His power. The incarnation of His radiation is called ‘Kalavatara’ which is the formless God like light worshipped by some believers. The light travels as waves and the Siva Linga in the temple represents this formless God. Since the Post graduation students are less in number only one professor comes down and He is the ‘Pari poorna tamavathara’ i.e., the most complete incarnation, which reveals the final true knowledge. He is called ‘Satguru’ or the original Datta in the human form.​​​​Datta exists in two forms. 1) The three headed form. 2) One headed form. The three headed form indicates ‘Para brahma’ (God) who creates, rules and destroys the Universe by His three faces. The other single headed form is the external human form in which the three-headed form exists as the internal form, which is not seen. This is the essence of the ‘Eka Mukha Datta’ (One headed from) and ‘Trimukha Datta’ (The three headed form). Therefore the Schoolteacher shows miracles and converts the atheist into theist. The college lecturer trains the theists in the worship of the statues having human form to remove ego and jealousy in the man and make him a devotee. The last university professor gives the final true knowledge that God comes down in human form only and that He (the professor) Himself is God.​​*Anil Antony*​www.universal-spirituality.org​antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org​


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## CaramelChocolate (May 23, 2005)

Dattaswami, thanks for the info! I always had trouble explaining murti puja to people but you have taken the right words and explained it properly!

GOD - Generator, Operator, Destroyer.


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