The Formless Seems Easy until the Form of Rama Begins to Play
Uttara Kanda, Doha 74
Doha 74 · Movement 2 of 2
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Those immersed in desire, anger, pride, and greed, bound to the house of worldly attachment, live within suffering while imagining they can judge Raghupati. Bhushundi sees them as fallen into a dark well, unable to recognize the sky above its narrow opening.
Then comes a startling distinction. The nirguna, the Lord beyond qualities and form, appears more easily approached. The saguna Lord, personally present and acting within the world, remains unfathomable.
Rama's deeds can be simple enough for a child to love and inaccessible enough to bewilder a sage. The formless absolute may be held as a clean conception, but the living Lord laughs, grieves, runs, accepts bondage, and overturns every boundary the intellect builds around divinity. Even munis become uncertain before a lila at once intimate and infinite. The darkness does not lie in the form. It lies in expecting the form to obey the limits of the mind that sees it.
The boundless without form may seem easier to name than the boundless child who runs laughing through a courtyard.
Read the passage from the Manas
काम क्रोध मद लोभ रत गृहासक्त दुखरूप। ते किमि जानहिं रघुपतिहि मूढ़ परे तम कूप।।73(क)।। निर्गुन रूप सुलभ अति सगुन जान नहिं कोइ। सुगम अगम नाना चरित सुनि मुनि मन भ्रम होइ।।73(ख)।।
Those given to kama, krodha, mada, and lobha, attached to household life, embodiments of suffering: how can such fools know Raghupati, fallen as they are into a dark well? The nirguna form is most accessible, yet none truly knows the saguna. Hearing of His deeds, at once so simple and so unfathomable, even the minds of munis become bewildered.