Are some people utterly incapable of understanding God’s form – are some religion’s revelations customized for such people?

Answer Podcast

So are there some people who just cannot who are not at the level where they can take up the conception or description in the form of law and that’s why they are not living in their particular traditions anthropomorphism is always a danger in every living tradition anthropomorphism means projecting on the divine the form of the human because I am like this so God will be like that so God is simply the best among all and whatever is my conceptual category will conceive of God as the best among that so now this sort of in our tradition also the material conception of the divine is very strongly reproached so this is a universal concern in all traditions now if in a particular tradition this is actually an elaborate subject which I am going to speak tomorrow but if in a particular tradition when it was revealed there were many different forms that were worshipped which were imagined concocted and then at that time the idea of form was associated with particular images so and those images are all culturally conceived then at that time those people may not be ready to conceive of God in absolute terms God’s form in absolute terms so then the focus may be for them just go beyond form so now the going beyond form can be in two ways one is that the absolute is formless or the other is the absolute of the form that we can’t conceive so even as I said yesterday also even when we talk about the form of God we say Krishna Krishna looks like this yes Krishna looks like this but Krishna is much more than this Vishwanathji Pratapur in his 10th canto in his Bhagavatam commentary Gopal Champur Gopal Champur very clear actually whenever we whenever the scriptures talk about the Lord’s form there may be a description but actually it’s only an indication it’s not a description actually speaking in the sense that Krishna’s form experiencing Krishna is much much much much deeper, much richer experience when we actually see in Arjuna Goswami’s Dalit Madhav he depicts that how a poet says that my lord I thought that when I glorified you you know I wrote some choice poetry using some beautiful metaphors from nature to describe your beauty but now when I have seen you I understand that my glorification of you was actually a deliberation because examples Gopal Champur gave the example if you glorify the emperor of the world as the serpent of a village as the head of a village head of a village is a big thing for a village but from the person’s point of view your head of village is inside so he said actually when I glorified you oh lord I thought I was glorifying you very beautifully but no metaphor can actually describe no description can actually describe the deepness, the richness, the sweetness of your beautiful form there is a there is a poet of Ram who says lord Ram’s eyes are as beautiful as lord Ram’s eyes there is no comparison so that way actually even when there is a revelation of Krishna’s form that is also uniquely true the actual experience of Krishna’s beauty is much deeper much richer, much sweeter than this so yes some people are incapable of receiving understanding God’s form, appreciating God’s form even we are not capable of that so you got that revelation but what it means that Krishna has this form that is something which takes a lot of time for us to appreciate even when we worship the deities how much we understand how Krishna is understood in worship so the point I will talk about this more elaborately in some traditions the form of the lord is revealed and that form of the lord revelation of the form of the lord as is revealed either through description verbally or through depiction visually that can help people to come to the level where they can realize the original form and in some cases for some people that kind of description may be an obstacle and so the description or depiction is not there and they just basically get free from all material conceptions so one approach is we give a description of God and then emphasize this is not material and gradually through purification you understand it is not material, it is spiritual the other is just avoid all material conceptions and just focus on purification and eventually the spiritual revelation of the form will come so both are valid approaches so in some cases for some people it may just be decided that according to myself for instance a particular approach is used