BRAHMAN/PARMATMA-form or formless? (ritual, soul, evolution, creation, prophet)

[vivek_prayag]

Many people criticise hinduism for worshipping idols and clay images.ISLAM says that allah do not have any form. There is one question which troubled me- CAN ENERGY MANIFEST ITSELF WITHOUT ANY FORM? If parmatma is formless like energy , then still it need some form to manifest itself. Even prophet mohammed get the allah message through angel(form) in a dream.So, how can one deny the importance of form. soul is nothing without the form/body. What is the value of vaccum??????? According to vedas, brahman is both form and formless. You can reach through yoga or otherways to the formless brahman. But, can you have any emotions/love/bhakti for the formless vaccum/energy. You may have a belief about formless brahman but can one have the emotions/love toward the formless brahman from the beginning.So, Form do play a role at the beginning of one's spiritual journey.According to vedas, brahman is both nirguna/attributeless and saguna/attributes . The saguna brahman is responsible for creation , preservation and destruction-brahma,vishnu and mahesh.The nirguna brahman is like a infinite vaccum.
Share your views

[Hema]

Oh definitely - God is formed and formless. Everything in the universe is God. We are in God and God is in us. There is no place where God is not. Thus, God is also in the formed. It is scientifically proven that after a murti is consecrated ie when prayers are said to invoke the Deity to dwell within it, the energy level within it is significantly increased. Also, many Hindus around the world witnessed a miracle years ago when the murtis were drinking milk...myself included. In practice however, I do not do much murti worship. I don't deny their importance but I see them as a signpost leading to God who is the final destination. They are not the final destination within themselves. For me, self-realization will come when we seek God within and realize our true nature which is spirit.

[Hema]

I just want to add, that Shri Ram said that his name is greater than his form. This is because the form is limited by space and therefore limited by time. All the avatars left their physical bodies behind. Even the physical manifested universe is reabsorbed into Brahman - the Absolute Truth / Absolute Reality between cycles of creation.

[xexon]

Matter is just a kind of crystallized conciousness. It takes shape according to the thought form. Its what creation is all about. x

[zenzero]

Friend Vivek Prayag,
Finally it is NIRAKAR.
It is not a vaccum, this is NOTHINGNESS from which both forms and formless appears. This is pure Conciousness, simply awareness. All the three stgaes of life comes out of it from creation to preservation to destruction. The whole proicess of evolution is going through the whole process every second like it or not.
Love & rgds

[Seyorni]

When I think of Brahman, I'm thinking nirguna Brahman -- Brahman as limitless, attributeless Everythingness. When you impose limits and attributes on Brahman -- Brahman with gunas, then you create Gods, Demigods, Avatars, Angels, Pandits, men, elephants, trees, teapots, &c, depending on what attributes you choose to attribute to these imaginary creations.

[zenzero]

Simply put
Out of WU-CHI [nothingness came form and the formless [all opposites/ying/yang]
and both merge back to nothingness.
Forms are illusion/maya/duality.
Finally it is non-duality.
Love & rgds

[Hema]

Originally Posted by zenzero

Simply put
Out of WU-CHI [nothingness came form and the formless [all opposites/ying/yang]
and both merge back to nothingness.
Forms are illusion/maya/duality.
Finally it is non-duality.
Love & rgds

This sounds like the process of creation according to Hinduism. The physical universe is manifested from Brahman and at the end of each cycle of creation, it is reabsorbed back into Brahman.

[Hema]

Originally Posted by xexon

Matter is just a kind of crystallized conciousness. It takes shape according to the thought form. Its what creation is all about. x

Some people say that crop circles are related to people's thought processes. Perhaps crop circles are formed in this manner.