by Sri Bimal Mohanty
VOL No. 45
November. 2004

THE DEBATE- FORM OR FORMLESS?

Part 2

"Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty"

As for the jiva, the union with the absolute Brahman, the satchidAnanda is its paramount goal, so for the Lord, to assist and help the jiva to reach that state is His ‘will’. So the Lord chooses to enter into the states of manifestation with that definite purpose, for the uddhAra or upliftment of the ignorant soul.

Again Sri Aurobindo observed in ‘The Life divine’ : “… Divine being …is at once Form and the Formless …Forms are manifestations, not arbitrary inventions out of nothing…the essentials of form carry always in them a significance…”

But that is how they have to be understood, and having understood, the sAdhaka must go on in his task of further exploration.

One of the three foundations of sanAtan philosophy (prasthAnatrayas), the Brahmasutra ( the other two being The Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita) has declared unequivocally that the ultimate character of Brahman, is indeed formlessness:

Aroopavat eva hi, tat pradhAnatvAt.

Earlier the sAdhaka understood the divine purpose of forms. Now the task before him is to understand the unmanifested formless Brahman.

Our scriptures especially the Upanishads are full of this concept of formlessness.

In the beginning part of the Vedas, the forms are dealt with. We have Gods and goddesses and their ritualistic worships that are extensively explained. But as the Vedas proceed and enter the phase of Upanishads, which is also known as Vedanta or end of Vedas, the formlessness is exclusively dealt with. If without first understanding the concept of forms, we would have straightway ventured into these statements from the scriptures, quite likely, we might have ended up in a jungle of confusion and contradictions. But now, the sAdhaka is some what knowledgeable and could be a fit student to understand such declarations as:

From Brahmasutras : Aroopavat eva hi, tat pradhAnatvAt. – in principle, Brahman is without form.

Or again na pratike, na hi sah – Brahman is not to be seen in a symbol because he is not a symbol.

Or what BrhadAranyaka says:

Etat vai tat akshram…. It is not subject to any mutation, asthulam - It is not a gross object, anaNu- Not a fine object either. ahrasvam, adirgham- neither subject to reduction or expansion. alohitam- has no colour, asneham- can not stick to anything, acchAyam- does not cast a shadow (hence has no body) and atama does not darken anything , avAyva- not like air, anAkASam- not even similar to or empty like space, asaRgam- not produced from anything, arasam, agandham – has neither taste nor smell, acakshuskam, aSrotram, avAk, amukham, amanaH, - not dependent on eyes, ears, speech, mouth or mind, atejaskam – it is not a light source, aprANam- not driven by life force, , amAtram,- it has no dimensions, anantaram abAhyam - without an interior or an exterior na tad asnAti kimcana, na tad asnAti kascana- does not take anything in nor is taken in by anything.

Many such declarations abound also in Chandogya, Katha and other Upanishads.

The Brahman which was worshipped before with the form is now to be understood as indescribable and formless.

The form is one state of our consciousness. The formless is another.

Now the next question is, is that the culmination of our understanding? By accepting Brahman as formless, do we realize Brahman?

The answer is negative. Because even that is a concept of the mind and hence is another trap, and the mind could again find itself imprisoned in its own limited understanding.

So what will be the sAdhka’s next stage of approach?

As we first took the benefits of form and then overcame it, the time has now come to understand formlessness and then that also has to be overcome. The search now is for a stage, which is beyond formlessness.

Here again we can see the same divine scheme of things aimed to serve its purpose. Now as we approached Brahman through his impersonal aspect, we discovered that mind must not get imprisoned, either in the form nor even in this lofty concept of formlessness. The higher mind now sees both as states of bondages and once trapped in it going beyond will be a very difficult task.

Isavasya Upanishad says it very directly:

Andham tamah pravisanti ye asambhutim upAsate.

Tatah bhuyah iva te tamah yah u sambhutyAm ratAh

Those obsessed with the manifested lose themselves in darkness. Those running after the formless are no wiser and are even in greater ignorance. At least in the earlier stage, in our total ignorance, we fell for various forms. That was excusable. But now after overcoming the half knowledge of forms, if we still find ourselves happy with formlessness we are under greater darkness. Half knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge as they say.

Sambhutim ca vinAsham ca yah tad ubhayam saha

VinAshena mrtyum tirtvA sambhutyA amrtam asnute

Both manifested and unmanifested are to be understood together. With manifested you overcome the mortal state of ignorance. By the unmanifested you achieve the immortal state of knowledge.

But neither is to be taken as the finality. One has to cross over the bridge and discover what lies beyond the forms and also beyond formlessness. It has to be experienced and experienced by the sAdhaka alone, helped by the divine grace.

This is in conformity with the same thoughts expressed in a line in Kena Upanishad.

Anyat eva tat viditAt athah aviditAt adhi

Tat or ‘that’ – meaning the Brahman is surely different from ‘form’ or something that is the product of our sensory organs. And again, ‘that’ is beyond ‘formless’ or beyond the concept of our sense organs. Sri Aurobindo translates this in The Life Divine this way: ‘Other is That than the Known; also it is above the Unknown’.

(TO BE CONTINUED)