Is God with Form or Formless?

Bhajan Brahmachari

(from "Living with My Himalayan Master: Sri Sri Bhajan Brahmachari"):

On another day, a devotee asked the Master, "Is God with form or formless?" This has been a common question in the minds of most seekers on the path of God-consciousness.

Thakur replied with a calm voice, but thundering with the Truth that is enshrined in the Vedic tradition:

"Ishwar is God without beginning and without end. He is there for eternity, beyond the time frame, eternally at play with the process of creation and annihilation. That is the reason the path of Dharma or Truth is the path of justice, the path of peace. Truth reveals, in its own mysterious ways, the untruths with which the whole of cosmic play is happening.

You see God according to your own faith. You may call God formless or with form. Know that the formless aspect resonates to the nature of those who follow the path of Jnana (knowledge), while the divine in form speaks to those who follow the path of Bhakti, which is devotion and love. Don't force a formless God on the ones who are treading the path of devotional surrender. In the path of Bhakti (devotion), if the devotee cannot relate to the form of God, if he cannot see or touch God, his feelings would be hurt. If you have your ego - and your egoic existence is true to you as long as the world of form exists to you - various forms of God also are truth for you. Do you know what the great mystic saint Kabir has said, 'Formless is my Father, and form is my Mother.'

This is the way Thakur used to flow spontaneously, though he never had any formal training or study of the scriptures of the Hindu faith.