Can the Formless Walk as a Man?
Bala Kanda, Doha 50
Doha 50 · Movement 2 of 2
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Sati turns the attributes of Brahman within her mind: all pervading, stainless, unborn, beyond the senses, desireless, indivisible, and unknown in fullness even to the Vedas. Such Reality cannot be enclosed by any boundary.
Before her memory stands a man in forest clothing, grieving for his wife. Can the limitless truly take a body and become human? The question rises because she imagines form as a prison rather than a freely chosen revelation.
The nirguna and saguna appear to face each other across an impossible distance. Sati cannot yet see that the distance exists only within her understanding.
The forest form and the formless Absolute stand divided inside Sati's thought.
Read the passage from the Manas
ब्रह्म जो व्यापक बिरज अज अकल अनीह अभेद। सो कि देह धरि होइ नर जाहि न जानत वेद।। 50।।
Can that Brahman who is all-pervading, stainless, unborn, beyond the reach of the senses, desireless, and without division, that One whom even the Vedas cannot fully know, can He take on a body and become a mortal being?