Question: Do you also take different forms?

Sri Chinmoy: Every day we wear different clothes and assume different duties in our lives, but we are still the same person. For us there are many different things to do; for God there is all Delight. God is constantly playing a game of hide-and-seek with us. It is His divine, Cosmic Game. Sometimes He takes the form of a great-grandfather and just plays with His great-grandchildren. If He takes the form of a child, what else can you expect? He is eternally playing. God knows that we will win the Game, so He can always enjoy Himself. If you know that you will lose at a game, then you become lazy; you will not participate wholeheartedly. But in the Supreme's case, He gets tremendous joy in the Game itself, not in the result. He does not feel any different when He wins or loses the race.

I have taken many hundreds and thousands of forms, but my disciples have never caught me. Sometimes if I want to show my inner capacities, I show them in dreams or meditation. A Yogi can take any form in the subtle planes. When I show you my capacity in a dream, you get joy. But the following morning, your mind comes forward and doubts it. If I advise you in a dream, you will be thrilled, overjoyed. Then, after a few hours, you say, "He has given me such bad advice!" First you get joy from my advice, then the mind comes forward and the joy is lost. I become a stranger to you. If a stranger gives you advice, naturally you will be furious. But if I can enter into your heart and make you feel it is your own discovery, your own realisation, the following morning you will say that you have discovered something divine. When this discovery remains inside you, for days and months you will cherish it.

So real spiritual Masters try to do everything like a thief. They let the disciple feel that he himself has discovered something very special. Likewise, God is always playing the Cosmic Game of hide-and-seek with us, becoming whatever is necessary in order to offer us Peace, Light, Bliss and Power.