In plain words
Looking at the form, we are deluded into thinking, ‘This is a hall, this is a pandal, this is a big building, this is a small building’; but in truth all that we see in this world is the form of the Ātma itself. We ourselves build the pandal and the building, and give them their various names. In the same way we limit God too to forms and names of our own imagining. The Gopīs alone grasped this truth. They could see Kṛṣṇa everywhere. In worldly dealings we address each one in a different way, ‘my son, my brother-in-law, my younger brother, my elder brother, my uncle’; but in truth God Himself has entered those bodies and so appears to us. So we must regard every person as an embodiment of God. What fills this whole world is nothing but the principle of Brahman. Divinity becomes visible to us through the state of the jīva. The form of God appears as the form of the jīva. All forms and names are only imagined!
Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṃsa used to worship the Mother of the Universe in many ways. One day the Mother of the Universe appeared before him: ‘Rāmakṛṣṇa! You are turning into a madman. Why do you limit Me to one particular form and name? I Myself am in all forms. All these forms are only imagined. Whomever you see, think, “This one is God Himself”,’ she taught him. What appears in this form and what appears in that form is God Himself! If you wish to see God, He is not seen as anything other than the one Ātma principle. ‘He is an employee, this man is a merchant’: this is how we go on thinking. But whomever you see, you must think, ‘This one is nothing but a reflection of the Ātma.’
Who is God? Nirguṇa, stainless, beyond the guṇas. He is not one who has a particular form. Human nature is nothing but a reflection of God. So we must regard every human being as God, honour him and make him happy. Though God is everywhere, He takes on a human form so as to serve and set the world an example.