There is an interesting exchange in the Gospel (p. 80) when Sri Ramakrishna asks Mahendra Nath Gupta (better known as simply “M”): “Do you believe in God with form or without form?” M knows where his mind is drawn, but he is also somewhat bewildered by the question, wondering to himself if it really is a matter of choice. Can God be both with form and also without form? Can God be both personal and impersonal? M says to himself: “Can these two contradictory ideas be true at the same time?”
Spiritual teachers have spoken about the personal and the impersonal in different ways, advocating for one or the other. But a few have also said that God can be both personal as well as impersonal. Sri Ramakrishna went further and said that God is also “many things more” (Gospel, p. 366). In other words, there is no need to limit God’s identity to either personal or impersonal, as if those are the only two options. God is beyond even the idea of the personal and the impersonal. No words can describe perfectly who God really is. Perhaps God is neither personal nor impersonal. God is God. Or, even better, God simply is.
To those who care, whatever or whoever is referred to by the word “God” is someone, even if the identity of that someone is difficult to pin down. The scriptures speak of God as one “from whom all beings are born, in whom they live, and to whom they eventually return” (see Taittirīya Upaniṣad, 3.1.1; also Brahma Sutra, 1.1.2). God is the source, the support, and the ultimate destination of everyone and everything.
We may read about God in books, but God is not a theoretical construct. God is real—infinitely more real than whatever we tend to accept as real. Books may help, but God is truly known only when God is seen. It is a special kind of “seeing.” It happens not through the eyes or any of the senses. It is an experience that is closer to us than our own self. It’s like the way we experience our own existence.
Until this kind of “seeing” happens (and it will one day), the next best thing we can do is to think of God. But when the mind tries to think of God, it can only use the tools it knows, the categories it is familiar with, the language it understands. Hence the ideas of God as being either with form (sākāra) or without form (nirākāra), with qualities (saguṇa) or without qualities (nirguṇa).
Because every mind has a rich history of its own, its own set of accumulated impressions (saṁskāras), its own unique way of making meaning, not everyone thinks of God in an identical way. Efforts have been made throughout history, through persuasion as well as force, to bring people around to think of God in a uniform way. Unsurprisingly such efforts have gone nowhere. They did not succeed then, they won’t succeed now.
No matter how the mind thinks of God, it is only a manner of thinking, nothing more, nothing less. If the way we think of God is meaningful in some way, if it brings some clarity to the mind, if it draws a person closer to experiencing God, what’s wrong with that thinking—even if that thinking is radically different from my own? If I treasure my own freedom to think of God in a way I like, I must respect the freedom of others to think of God in a way they like.
When M said that his mind likes to think of God as formless, Sri Ramakrishna’s response is worth treasuring in every heart:
“Very good. It is enough to have faith in either aspect. You believe in God without form; that is quite all right. But never for a moment think that this alone is true and all else false. Remember that God with form is just as true as God without form. But hold fast to your own conviction.” (Gospel, p. 80)
There is no objective test to determine which kind of God will make sense to a person’s intellect or to which kind the mind will be spontaneously drawn. The connection between me and my God just happens in some mysterious sort of way. Since the connection, at this stage, is through the mind, the mind’s color gets reflected in it. As long as I am a person, my God will also be a “person,” even when my intellect strives its utmost to think of God in impersonal terms. To think of God as impersonal and, at the same time, to cling to one’s own personality just doesn’t make sense.
Our concept of God evolves as we evolve. The God we worship is the God we understand and the God we need. As our understanding deepens, our concept of God becomes nuanced. As our needs change, a corresponding change is noticed in the way we think of God. The simultaneous evolution of the devotee’s mind and the God whom the devotee worships reaches its fulfillment when the mind, now completely pure and transparent, disappears. With the disappearance of the mind, thinking stops. That is when seeing starts. “Thinking” is an activity of the mind. Everything comes to a standstill when “experience” begins.
What we experience cannot be put into words. What is experienced is neither personal nor impersonal. What is experienced neither has form nor is it formless. The moment we try to express what it is, the mind and the senses spring into action—and the experience ends. The expression always falls short. It is bound by the limitation of language and colored by the impressions in the mind. The expression can never match the experience.
It’s time to stop counting “the trees, branches and leaves” and to start eating “mangoes” (Gospel, p. 161). It’s pointless to simply talk about God if the talk is not followed by a resolute walk toward the goal. How can we hope to reach there unless we begin walking, if not running?
Only when we reach God will we know who God really is.