# The Worship of the Formless: 10 The moment we speak of the formless, we trap it within form. Language itself becomes a cage, however spacious we imagine it to be. And yet, silence too is a choice—perhaps the loudest one. Consider the paradox: those who have glimpsed something beyond the reach of words often find themselves seized by an urgency to speak. Not out of arrogance, but out of a strange compassion. They wish to kindle in others what they themselves have felt—that trembling at the edge of the unknowable. In the old texts, the sages would teach through *neti neti*—"not this, not this." Endless negation, a clearing away of false identities and borrowed certainties. But negation, too, must end somewhere. Or does it? Perhaps the purpose is not to arrive at a final truth, but to exhaust the mind's hunger for certainty itself. When all questions have been asked and found wanting, what remains? A kind of vast emptiness. A terrifying freedom. Most of us flee from this. We fill every silence with noise, every emptiness with meaning. We collect beliefs like shells on a shore, holding each one to the ear, listening for the ocean's roar. Some shells are beautiful, some ancient. But they are not the ocean. The formless cannot be worshipped through ritual alone, nor through thought, nor through devotion in its familiar forms. Perhaps it requires an act of becoming—a slow dissolution of the boundaries we mistake for self. Not suicide of the body, but a kind of radical forgetting. Forgetting the names we've been given, the stories we've been told, the very hunger to be remembered. In that forgetting lies a stranger recognition.

Forty-One.

I have not come to bestow knowledge, devotion, or love upon anyone. I have come to disperse myself within humanity—to make mortal beings complete through the fullness of action. The establishment of immortality and the establishment of nature are one and the same thing.

Religion is created by me. This alone is the only living religion. Whether atheist or believer—everyone must naturally abide by it. No one can dishonor it. Apart from this living religion that I have fashioned, all other creeds and doctrines are merely collections of custom, governance, or rules and regulations. They possess no vital breath, no living form.
How can one who is formless, bodiless, lifeless, and powerless give complete form to a living human being? The so-called religions, philosophies, and paths are innumerable—they are nothing but the flowing streams of social custom. People may embrace them if they wish, or abandon them if they choose. But can a religion that one may accept or reject at will ever truly constitute a human being?

What permanence can there be in a creed practiced merely from habit? The moment habit ceases, it ends. Religion is one; religion is never a collection of habits. Religion is nature itself. The question of grasping it or releasing it does not arise. Humans do not even possess that power.

Many shudder with fear at the mere mention of religion, curl their lips in disdain, mock, and cast about their comments. In truth, those who live this way dwell in the paradise of ignorance.

Who is our Creator? What is our true religion? Where lies our want? And how may we fulfill that want?—these are the proper subjects of human contemplation. Why comment without seeing, without understanding, without knowing? Humans arrive in this world bearing an immense responsibility, yet they know it not. Were they to know it, they could not speak so thoughtlessly, so free of accountability.
Through humanity, this vast universe, with all its substance, awaits its living manifestation. Thus the human sense of responsibility and duty is extraordinarily great. One who is conscious of duty has no leisure for irresponsible commentary.
I am nature.

In the material realm, I have presented this colossal body of mine before all in living form, solely for the education of beings. The sky, air, water, earth, and fire—these five elements comprise my immense, living nature. These elements condense and become metal or seed. This metal is called the dharma-element. This is the living religion of humanity; this alone sustains the entire creation of the world. There is only one religion; religion is never divided into two.

Forty-Two.

My relationship with humanity is utterly alive. Even if humanity should lack everything else, it might yet survive; but without me, there is no way for humanity to exist. Without me, the maintenance of human life is impossible. No one possesses the capacity to replace me.

Consider—if even a single part of my world-nature, such as air, water, or earth, were to disappear, humans would instantly lose their breath. Yet if someone were to forget God, the Divine, or Brahman, their life would not be forfeit. How many there are who have lived forgetting the Divine, and yet they remain alive. But my absence—hunger without food, thirst without water, the inability to breathe—how long has anyone survived such deprivation?

Through my world-nature, I hold within myself the gross, the subtle, the causal, and the great causal; Brahman and beyond Brahman—these are my very body, and I alone am their creator. My power is never destroyed nor diminished; yet circumstances change to fulfill the hopes and longings of humanity.

Creation or birth is the manifestation of my living form; sustenance is my unfoldment; and dissolution is my contraction. That which serves as the center around which creation, sustenance, and dissolution—these three eternal acts—ceaselessly occur: this is my infinite nature.

In my nature, all actions occur perpetually and impartially. Therefore, this secular disposition exists only within me.

There is no need to compel anyone to believe in me. Whether people believe or not matters nothing to me. I need no special teaching to be known or to make myself known. People perceive me with their eyes, receive me with their intellect, apprehend me through knowledge, and then set themselves to action. My way is this: “First understand, then act.”

The way that prevails elsewhere is: “First act, then understand.” But my way transcends error and fault. My nature is to fulfill all deficiency, to resolve all complaint and longing. To make the incomplete complete—this is my essence. My aim is not liberation, freedom, or isolation. Birth and death continue to fulfill their respective duties around me.

Within me unfolds an eternal drama. I am both its beginning and its end. In the fullness of all incompleteness, I am complete myself—therefore I depend on nothing else.

Forty-three.

From the very source of creation, I dwell within all creatures, human and otherwise. The human body is the final and fullest form of natural creation. In that body I have remained in animal form through countless ages, hoping that one day human beings, through their own deeds, would free me from that animality.

I am neither bound nor free—beyond both. Therefore, in whatever form I manifest, I remain inherently unchanged. In singular form I am myself, in manifold forms I am myself, and in distinct forms too I am myself. I play with myself, becoming both one and many. From beasts to gods, to the divine, to Brahman—all costumes are possible for me.

Yet for the full expression of my nature, I have chosen the human being. Because in no other body is my complete manifestation possible. To express myself fully, human consciousness alone is the sole medium. Therefore, until humanity understands that nothing exists in this world but me, my animality will not cease.

When human consciousness awakens, then they will recognize me—as the life of life, the breath of breath, the body of the body. Then humanity will strive to free me from animality. With this awakening shall come my liberation from the animal state. And with my liberation, within humanity will mingle animality, divinity, godhood, and Brahmanhood—all dissolving into complete humanity. Then, seeing a single human being, one shall see the full manifestation of all things, and I too shall be found in completeness.

In the near future, through teachers, statesmen, and social leaders, this awakening shall surely come. For until complete humanity awakens within people, they cannot be responsible even for themselves, let alone bear responsibility for others. Only then shall come the true question of “building humanity.”

That time has now arrived. On one side shall rage the great sacrifice of destruction; on the other shall proceed, with full vigor, the work of building humanity.