The problem with worshipping a form or a face || Acharya Prashant, with Delhi University (2023)
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00:00If you looked at a Ram statue or picture belonging to the last century or to the century before last one,
00:07even till the 1980s,
00:08Shri Ram is a very gentle looking North Indian fellow.
00:10And if you look at how Shri Ram is being shown today, what kind of form do you see?
00:15Very muscular?
00:16Yeah.
00:16Almost similar to a Bollywood or Hollywood action hero?
00:20Where is the form then coming from?
00:22Is the form divine?
00:23No, the form is coming from your own current political and social tastes.
00:27That is what is wrong with form.
00:28The form is your own ego projected on the screen.
00:31Just as you have a projector in a movie theatre,
00:34you see the thing in front of you on the screen.
00:37But where is that image on the screen coming from?
00:40It is coming from a place behind you.
00:42Similarly, all these forms that you worship are coming from a place within you.
00:46Your own ego is projecting itself into something and then you start worshipping it.
00:50Which is quite stupid.
00:51It's like worshipping your own shadow,
00:53thinking that it is separate from you.
00:54And that's why those who have known have always said that the truth is formless.