Seeing God – God Appearing With Name and Form
Understanding the Vision of a Personal God by a Devotee
Aug 9, 2009
When an earnest seeker leaves behind all his cravings for sensual pleasures and other worldly pursuits, single-mindedly yearns for his only goal in life, namely to attain God, and his yearning is so intense as though he is gasping for air to breathe, he gets his divine vision, by the grace of God.
In Hinduism, God is attributed with name and form. The one and only God, who is omniscient and omnipotent, whom the Upanishads call the Brahman, who transcends all name and forms but who is the in-dweller in all the names and forms of His creation, will present himself as the personal God of the earnest seeker.
Some Popular God Forms in Hinduism
Hinduism offers multiple God forms to suit the varying tastes and temperaments of the worshiper. Thus Vaishnavites (the worshipers of Lord Vishnu, the God of protection) worship him as Narayana in his glorious form, lying reclined in his bed of 5-headed snake Adisesha, at his abode Vaikuntha, with his divine consort Lakshmi. He is also worshiped in standing posture. Vishnu is also worshiped in any of his popular forms of Avatar -- Rama, Krishna, Narasimha and so on.
Likewise, a saivite ( worshiper of Lord Shiva, the destroyer) may worship him in his glorious form wearing tiger skin at the waist, smearing ash all over his body, carrying a trishul at his hand and a snake adoring his neck. Or Shiva can also be worshiped in his form as Nataraja, the cosmic dancer or as Artanari, with half of his body taken up by his wife Shakti.
There are also devotees who worship Shakti (or Kali) as their personal God, who is considered the universal divine mother. Options for worshiping Gods in a form most dear to one is quite wide in Hinduism.
Loving The Personal God all Out – Nishtha Bhakti
The earnest seeker loves his personal God with a single pointed, unwavering devotion. He treats his personal God virtually as the one and only true form of representation of the all pervading God, presenting Himself easy, amenable and available for his adoration and worship. He is not really concerned with questions or doubts as to whether God, who is considered omniscient, omnipotent, infinite and beyond the reach of mind and intellect, can truly be restricted to the single name and form that he personally adores.
A true devotee and lover of God, having such a mindset, has no use for intellectual analysis about God. Hinduism actually encourages such a single pointed devotion (called “Nishtha Bhakti”) as one of the best ways of relating to God. “What is needed is a child-like faith” ascertains Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
This “nishtha,” single-pointed love on the personal God can get gloriously narrowed down to much further and finer levels too. A devotee of say, Lord Krishna, might be simply overwhelmed by the enchanting form of Krishna as a small cowherd boy and may get enthralled to read about Krishna’s divine plays and childhood pranks.
His love for God in Krishna’s form could be restricted to “Bala Krishna” (boy Krishna) only and he may not find any joy in imagining his God as a grown up Lord Krishna who is such a mighty personality that delivered the great spiritual discourse Bhagavat Gita to his companion Arjuna.
Pure Love For God (Prema) – The Need Before Vision
When such a highly focused love on a personal God turns to a passion, the devotee forgets everything else, even the basic human instinct to take care of his own physical body; Such a state of love on God is called “Prema Bhakti.”
When Prema Bhakti arrives, the time becomes ripe for him to get a divine vision of his personal God in all His glorious form that can render the devotee speechless with wonder. Ramakrishna says, “Prema is the rope by which you can tether God, as it were. Whenever you want to see him, you have to merely pull the rope. Whenever you call him, He will appear before you.”
Pure Mind, Pure Intellect and Pure Atman
When a devotee’s words, thoughts and actions are entirely filled with his love of his personal God, his mind is no longer an ordinary mind; his intellect is no longer an ordinary intellect. His mind is the purest of the minds; his intellect is the purest of the intellects. “Such a pure mind and the pure intellect are one and the same as the pure Atman residing inside him,” says Ramakrishna.
“When a devotee of Rama always thinks of Rama at the exclusion anything else, he himself becomes “Ramamaya (embodiment of Rama),” Ramakrishna adds. At the heightened spiritual state when the devotee becomes purity personified, what is left with him is pure Atman, which is nothing else than Rama for a Rama devotee. And this is the vision of the personal God that the devotee gets.
Can God be Seen with Physical Eyes?
At another occasion, Ramakrishna says, “God cannot be seen with the physical eyes. When a devotee is filled with Prema, he gets a “love-body” and also organs made of prema (love) – love eyes, love ears and so on. It is with this “love eye” that one sees God… It is like a person having jaundice seeing everything yellow… One who thinks of God day and night beholds him everywhere.”
Ramakrishna – One Who has Seen God in Various Forms
Ramakrishna himself is a standing example of a person who had vision of his personal God Kali (the universal divine mother) . Though Ramakrishna is a living embodiment of ecstatic love of his personal God, he is unique in his experience in having the visions of many other popular God forms of Hinduism.
He has experimented with all other sects of Hinduism where God is perceived as formless and had the unifying experience of Advaita (non-duality) also. He practiced other religious faiths too and had a vision of Jesus Christ and also experienced Allah at his heart.
Readers may also enjoy How to See God.
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