Q: Many people feel an urge to worship something which is apart from themselves. They are not very attracted to the Self. Instead they want to worship an external Guru or a God.

Worshipping forms of the deity or of the Guru is a useful aid for as long as one is not mature enough to know the formless reality. These forms are just signals which point to the unmanifest reality.

If you want to point out a particular start to someone you might say, 'You see the tip of that leaf on that tree? The star is just to the left of it.'

The leaf is only a signal which helps you to shift your attention to what you really want to see. The form of the Guru is a similar signpost. He exists with a form as a perpetual reminder to us that our attention should always be on the formless reality