Complete works of Swami Abhedananda
by Swami Prajnanananda | 1967 | 318,120 words
Swami Abhedananda was one of the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and a spiritual brother of Swami Vivekananda. He deals with the subject of spiritual unfoldment purely from the yogic standpoint. These discourses represent a study of the Social, Religious, Cultural, Educational and Political aspects of India. Swami Abhedananda says t...
Chapter 3 - Has God any Form?
â€�The all-pervading, omnipotent, and formless Spirit manifests Himself in various forms under different names to fulfil the desires of His worshippers.’â¶Ä�Vishnu Purana.
Students of the Old Testament are familiar with the fact that the ancient Israelites conceived their God—Elohim or Yahveh, the Lord God, as possessing human attributes and a human form. There are many passages which testify that God walked with Adam and Eve and spoke to them; He ate and drank with the elders of Israel; and the Lord said to Moses: ‘I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take my hand away and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shalt not be seen.� (Ex. xxxiii, 22, 23.) Yahveh was the Lord of the House of Israel. He was, moreover, not only the God of Abraham and of Moses, but He became the supreme Being and the only God above all gods. Upon this conception of the supreme Being, with a human form and human personality, have been built the structures of the two great monotheistic or dualistic religions, Judaism and Christianity.
The same Elohim or Yahveh, the Lord of the house of Israel, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, and of Moses, is the almighty Creator, Ruler, and Father in heaven of the Jews and the Christians of the present day. He sits on a throne outside the universe, having a right hand and a left hand, and according to the Christian belief, Jesus sits at His right hand. Neither Christ nor Moses, nor any of the prophets had to introduce a new God among the Jews. All of them accepted and worshipped the same Elohim or Yahveh, who was at first only the tribal god of the house of Israel. Here we must not forget the original meaning of the word ‘Elohim�, which, although translated into English in the Old Testament as God, at first meant ‘that which is feared� and was sometimes used vaguely to describe unseen powers or ‘objects of man’s fear�, or superhuman beings not properly regarded as divine in their nature. It was also applied to a disembodied soul, which was conceived as the image of the body in which it once dwelt, as for example, we read in First Samuel (ch. 38, v. 13) that the witch of Endor saw ‘Elohim ascending out of the earth�, meaning thereby some being or disembodied spirit of an unearthly, superhuman character.
This word ‘Elohim� was the plural form of ‘Eloah� and was also used to denote the gods of the heathen. It was a generic name given to supernatural characters of all kindshaving quasi-corporeal forms, as well as to the gods of different tribes. Chemosh, Dagon, Baal, Yahveh were all known as Elohim and each of them had a human form. But, in spite of its plural meaning, the Hebrew prophets used it especially for Yahveh, the god of Israel. The Israelites, however, believed Yahveh to be immeasurably superior to the Elohim of other tribes: while the inscription on the Moabite stone shows that King Mesa held Chemosh to be as unquestionably the superior of Yahveh. It is said: ‘So now Yahveh, the Elohim of Israel, hath dispossessed the Amorites from before His people Israel, and shouldst thou possess it? Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy Elohim giveth thee to possess?� (Judges xi, 23, 24.) The Israelites of those days considered the difference between one Elohim and another to be one of degree and not of kind. The same word was likewise applied to Teraphim, the images of family gods, which were only deceased ancestors. Laban asks his son-in-law most indignantly, ‘Wherefore hast thou stolen my Elohim?�
From a careful study of the Old Testament we see that, although the Israelites believed in many kinds of Elohim and used the word indiscriminately, Yahveh was the god of their tribe, while other tribes had Elohim of their own. When the house of Israel conquered any other tribe, their tribal god Yahveh stood at the head of the gods of the conquered tribe, as we know from history. When the Babylonians and Chaldeans were conquered by the Israelites, Yahveh was placed above Bel, Baal, Merodoch, Moloch, and the other Elohim or gods of the conquered tribes. Thus, by the gradual process of evolution Elohim or Yahveh became the king or Lord of all gods. We can now easily understand what the Hebrew Psalmist meant, when he said: ‘Among the gods there is none like unto thee, the King above all gods.� But, although Yahveh became the supreme Lord of all gods, hence of all tribes and nations, he still did not lose his human form, human attributes and human personality. Even, when he became the creator and ruler of the universe, he had the same human form, the same attributes and personality as were ascribed to him by the ancient Israelites. A belief in many gods was at the foundation of the Judaic conception of one supreme Being, and Yahveh. the tribal god originally worshipped under the form of a bull, gradually evolved into ‘god of gods� and finally into the one and only God of the universe.
In like manner, it can be shown that among the ancient Greeks and other Aryan nations, the idea of a personal god, with a human form, gradually developed from a belief in many tribal gods or nature gods. All monotheistic conceptions can be traced back to polytheistic beliefs. The ancient Greeks, like all other primitive peoples, worshipped many nature gods. They perceived the forces of nature and gave to them human powers and attributes. We know that Zeus, Apollo, Athene were all personified powers of nature. Zeus originally meant sky, hence god of the sky, the god of rain, or rainer. The old prayer of the Athenians was, ‘Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the land of the Athenians and on the fields�. Here, ‘O dear Zeus� or ‘dear sky� at once brings in the personal element. ‘Dear sky� refers to the god of the sky, the governor of rain. Appollo, again, was the sun god; Athene, the dawn-goddess. Each of these mythological deities was, furthermore, originally the god of some family or clan, and afterward, when one family became stronger than others, its family god stood at the head of the other gods; thus, in course of time, the ancient God Zeus-pitar, or in Latin, Jupiter, meaning in English, Father in heaven, became the God of all gods and was supposed to be the God of all nations.
So it was in ancient India during the Vedic period. The Vedic poets at first personified the forces of nature and gave them human attributes and intelligence. They were called in Sanskrit �devas� or ‘Bright Ones�, such as Indra, the rainer or thunderer; Agni, the god of fire; Vayu, the god of storm or wind; Varuna, the god of the sky; and so on. Eventually, Varuna, lord of the sky, became deva-deva, the god of all gods, and thus, gradually arose in India, the monotheistic conception of the supreme personal God with human attributes. It can, in the same way, be shown that the tribal gods among the Semitic tribes were at first nothing but nature gods.
It may be asked here: Why were the forces of nature personified? Because, primitive man could not help it. Whereever he saw any activity or motion, he compared it to the conscious activity of his own body or to the voluntary movements of his limbs, and explained this natural activity by imagining it to be the conscious act of some superhuman being, possessing will-power and intelligence and was called the mover. From this, we can easily understand the reason for the ancient belief that all material objects like the sun, moon, and stars, were moved by angels. Now we say ‘it rains� or ‘it thunders�, but the primitive man used to say, ‘he rains�, ‘he thunders�. In this manner, the unscientific minds of ancient times came to a belief in natural agencies. These agents were like human beings, only more powerful than any mortal agent. Hence, was developed the idea of superhuman beings, who became tribal gods and who were invoked in time of need. The Lord of the universe and the King above all gods was necessarily infinitely more powerful than these superhuman agents of nature, but still he had a human form infinitely magnified in size, because it is extremely difficult for the human mind to go beyond the idea of a human God.
From ancient times, however, strong protests have been made by great thinkers against this human idea of God with human form and human attributes; but, again and again, these objections have been brushed aside by the vast majority of people. Xenophanes, the Greek philosopher, about the sixth century before Christ, tried to overthrow this anthropomorphic conception of God. He said: ‘The Godhead is all eyes, all ears, all understanding, unmoved, undivided, calmly ruling everything by his thought, like men neither in form nor in understading�. The early Christians, who were brought up in the schools of Plato and Aristotle, also deprecated the idea of a human God. To them, the supreme Being was no longer simply Elohim or Yahveh, the Lord of the house of Israel; not merely the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the God who walked in the garden of Eden in the cool of the day and ate and drank; He was no longer even the God ‘who maketh the douds His chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind�, but a supreme Being who was infinite, indescribable, unutterable, and whose form could not be seen with fleshly eyes, whose voice could not be heard with mortal ear, whose size was incomprehensible. Clement of Alexandria says: ‘There is no name that can properly be named of Him; neither the one, nor the good, nor mind, nor absolute Being, nor Father, nor Creator, nor Lord can be the appropriate name for Him�. And Cardinal Newman declares: ‘God is incommunicable in all His attributes�.
Not very long ago, the Bishop of London also protested against the human God, saying: ‘There is a sense in which we cannot ascribe personality to the unknown, absolute Being; for, our sense of personality is of necessity compassed with limitations, and, from these limitations, we find it impossible to separate our conception of a person�. When, indeed, we speak of human personality, we include appearance, the expression of the face and so on.
Those who believe in a personal God with a human form and human attributes, do not consider these limitations They do not think for a moment: How is it possible for the infinite eternal Being to be confined within the limits of a human form, however magnified it may be? How is it possible for the absolute Being to come under the limitations of time and space? Physical form is nothing but limitation in space and time, and, if the eternal and infinite God be above time and space, how can He have a physical form? Yet most of the dualistic religions teach that God has a form, and ask us to believe in it, and to worship Him as one with form. How are we going to reconcile this self-contradictory statement that God is the infinite eternal Being with a finite form? We do not find any solution of the difficulty in any of the Scriptures of the three great Semitic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism. Of these Christianity conceives God under a triune form, while Judaism and Mohammedanism insist on the absolute unity of the supreme Being. Where is, then, the solution of the problem? If God be infinite and all-pervading, how can He have form?
The dualists or monotheists believe in the supreme Being with a human form, but they say that, that form is not material or physical but spiritual. It cannot be seen by the physical eye, but it can be seen by the spiritual eye of an enligtened soul. According to the dualistic system of religion in India, the infinite, eternal, unknowable Being or Substance of the universe, which is called in Sanskrit �Brahman�, is the source of all powers and all forms. Although it is formless like the infinite ocean of Reality or of absolute existence, intelligence and bliss, it, nevertheless, contains in a potential state all the forms of the waves that can arise in that eternal ocean. The water of the ocean has no particular form or shape; we can say that it is formless in one sense, but at the same time it can take any form when frozen into ice. A block of ice, for instanace, can appear in the form of a triangle, sphere, a circle, an animal, or a human being.. The same water without losing its nature can appear in a solidified form; and, as in this case, we are justified in saying that water, although formless, contains in a potential state all imaginable forms within itself, so the water of the ocean of that absolute Reality possesses in a potential state all the physical, material, mental, and spiritual forms that ever existed, or ever will exist in future.
The infinite and eternal Brahman does, indeed, appear and manifest Itself with a spiritual form, in order to satisfy the desire of the devotee or worshipper. Wherever there is intense longing to see God, wherever there is unflinching devotion and unselfish love with the whole heart and soul, there is the manifestation of the formless One to fulfil the desire of the devotee. It is then that the invisible Brahman, or the supreme Being, or the Reality, manifests Itself and becomes visible to the spiritual eye of the worshipper. Intense longing, unswerving devotion, and whole-hearted love of the soul draw out from the infinite source any particular form which the devotee wishes to see and worship; they have the power, as it were, to condense and solidify the water of the ocean of Reality into various forms. The spiritual form of the Divinity rises in the ocean of formless Brahman or of the absolute Godhead, floats there for some time, and after satisfying the desires of the true bhakta or worshipper, merges into that ocean again.
These forms vary in accordance with the ideal of the worshipper. If a worshipper has a longing to see God in the form to which he is devoted, of Jehovah or of Christ, for instance, he must draw that out of the infinite ocean. The Divinity will appear in that form to satisfy the desire of that devotee. If he be devoted to the form of Buddha, or Krishna, or Ramakrishna, or any other human or imaginary form, he will see such a one with his spiritual eye through intense longing and love. The personal God with a spiritual form is the objectification, projection, manifestation of the impersonal ocean of Divinity. The highest of all such manifestations is the Isvara of Vedanta. He is worshipped under various names as Vishnu, Jehovah, Shiva, Father in heaven, or Allah. As all-pervading heat is imperceptible, but becomes perceptible through friction, so wherever there is intense friction of devotion and love in the soul of the worshipper, there is the manifestation of that infinite Being either in human or superhuman form. There have been many such instances, where the absolute omnipresent Being manifested itself in various forms among all nations and in all countries.
In ancient times, there lived a boy saint who was the son of a ruling monarch. His name was Prahlada. His father was absolutely materialistic and atheistic in his belief, and could not bear the idea of a ruler greater and more powerful than himself. He believed in no other ruler of the world and through vanity and egotism thought that he was the lord of all. His son Prahlada, however, was a born saint. From his childhood his heart and soul were filled with extreme faith, devotion, and love for the almighty Ruler and Lord of the universe. He cared nothing for the world and found no pleasure in the luxuries and comforts of a princely life. They did not attract his mind. He always preferred to stay alone and had a tendency to renounce everything. So deeply absorbed was his mind in his divine Ideal that he could not listen to other things, and it was impossible for him to obey the commands of his godless father. The king grew angry at his behaviour, and one day, calling the prince to him, he asked him the reason of his disobedience. He inquired, under whose instigation he was behaving in that way and acting rebelliously against him who was the Lord of all. The boy saint replied: ‘The Ruler of the universe, the Lord of all nations, who is greater and more powerful than your majesty, has captured my heart and soul and has inspired me to behave in this way�. At this reply, the king, furious with rage and anger, was ready to punish his son by killing him instantly. Drawing his sword, he cried: ‘How dost thou dare to say that thou hast a lord more powerful or stronger than I? Where is thy lord? Show him to me!� The boy answered: ‘He is everywhere�. The king demanded, ‘Is he in that pillar?� Prahlada, praying to his divine Ideal from the bottom of his heart and soul and with firm faith rejoined: ‘Yes, He is there in that pillar�. The king answered: ‘Now ask thy lord to save thee from being beheaded�. Thus saying, he struck the pillar with a giant’s might and knocked it down. In the midst of the thundering noise of the crash, appeared the divine figure, radiant with celestial glory, to protect the devotee of the almighty Lord. The eyes of the wicked monarch were dazzled by the extraordinary brightness and celestial lustre of the divine form, but he could not bear the sight of another lord beside himself. He attacked the divine manifestation, and, in his attempt to conquer the supreme Ruler, he fell breathless on the spot. Such was the power of true faith. Can any one question the power of true faith when Jesus said: ‘for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you� (Matt, xvii, 20). That faith brought out the manifestation of the omnipresent Lord from the pillar. At the sight of this wonderful divine power and glory of the Almighty, the soul of the boy saint was filled with unbounded joy and ecstatic happiness. He approached the mighty figure with awe, reverence, and devotion, and prostrating himself at His feet, he poured fourth all prayers before Him to his heart’s content, saying: ‘O Lord, the almighty Ruler of the universe, Thou art indeed all-pervading and almighty. Thy power is inscrutable. To save Thy child from imminent death, to fulfil the desire of Thy true devotee and to punish this vain and egotistical earthly monarch, Thou hast shown Thy power and glory to all by making this Thy superhuman manifestation. What words are adequate to describe Thy majesty and Thy loving-kindness? All words that we can utter are Thine! I am Thy child and Thy servant; keep me in Thy service forever and ever, O Lord and Father of all animate and inanimate beings of the universe.
‘O Lord, Thou art the goal of all religions, and the sustainer, the master, the witness, the habitation, the refuge and the friend of all living creatures; Thou art the origin, dissolution, support, end, and the inexhaustible seed of the whole manifested universe. Thou art one, yet Thou takest many forms through Thy unspeakable power of maya. I bow down and salute Thee. Whosoever knows Thee as formless and with form knows the eternal Truth.�