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The Human Need for an Object to Venerate and to Be Guided By in the Spiritual Path · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  For the vast majority of individuals, the idea of
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  confronting the vast Consciousness without any
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  discernible or identifiable, form is overwhelming, anything
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  that is undefined or unlimited breeds discomfort and fear in
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  our being. In the bhagavad-gita Arjuna is
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  confronted with a vision of the Divine in a vast all-powerful
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  form, far beyond what he was prepared to handle.
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  He begged SRI Krishnan to return to his normal four-armed form
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  and to shower Grace upon him. Fewer, those who can confront
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  the larger forms of the universal creation, much less
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  the vast formless reality. when our hearts and Minds, turn
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  towards spiritual growth, we therefore seek out and Associate
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  ourselves with some specific form of deity or specific
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  manifestation of the Divine in form or at the very least with
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  intermediaries, teachers gurus who provide us a close and
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  defined relationship with the divine This allows us to grow
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  and mature in our spiritual understanding over time within
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  defined limits that we have set at each stage of our growth.
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  Not every individual follows, the same form of God or the same
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  Incarnation or the same teacher yet as a general rule, each
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  individual aligns with someone or something that can Aid us in
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  our growth. Even the atheist who denies the
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  existence It's of God find some object or person with whom, he
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  aligned himself in his own path of growth.
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  Meanwhile we cast our teachers as avatars or incarnations of
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  God and in many cases believe and act upon that belief.
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  That the Divinity we worship the teacher we follow is the highest
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  Divinity and ultimate World teacher.
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  What we then fail to recognize is that the form the Divine
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  guidance takes for each of us is unique to our own personal.
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  Background and religious or spiritual tradition.
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  Thus, a Christian will have visions of Jesus or Mary while a
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  Hindu may experience the presence of Lord Krishna or
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  Lord, Shiva. This does not set one deity
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  above another, but simply represents the form that the
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  specific individual based on his background and experiential
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  mindset can see and understand. SRI aurobindo notes, quote, the
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  spiritual progress of most human beings demands and extraneous
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  support an object of Faith outside us.
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  It needs an external image of God or it needs a human
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  representative. Incarnation profit were Guru or
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  a demands both and receives them for according to the need of the
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  human soul, the Divine manifests himself, Has deity as human
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  Divine or in simple Humanity using that thick disguise.
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  Which so successfully conceals the godhead for a means of
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  transmission of his guidance. The Hindu discipline of
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  spirituality provides for this need of the sold, by the
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  conceptions of the ishta, devatha the Avatar, and the guru
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  by the ishta, devatha, The Chosen deity is meant, not some
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  inferior power, but a name and form of the Transcendent and
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  Universal godhead. Almost all religions either have
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  as their base or make use of some such name and form of the
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  Divine, its necessity for the human soul, is evident, God is
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  the all and more than the all, but that which is more than the
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  all. How shall men conceive?
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  And even the all is it first too hard for him?
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  For he himself in his act of Consciousness, is a limited and
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  selective formation and can open himself only to that, which is
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  in harmony with his limited nature.
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  There are things in the all which are too hard for his
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  comprehension or seem too terrible to his sensitive
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  emotions and cowering Sensations.
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  We're simply he cannot conceive as the Divine cannot approach or
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  cannot recognize something that is too much out of the circle of
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  his ignorant or partial conceptions.
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  It is necessary for him to conceive God in his own image,
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  or in some form that is beyond himself.
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  But consonant, With His Highest Tendencies and feasible by his
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  feelings or his intelligence Otherwise it would be difficult
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  for him to come into contact and communion with the Divine and
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  quote, reference SRI aurobindo in the mother growing within the
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  psychology of inner development. Chapter 3 growth of
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  Consciousness, basic requisites Pages, 52 to 53,