God is always in human form for human beings

Shankara told that God is awareness. By this He means that God is always in human form for human beings. The awareness is not available independently anywhere without a gross body. Therefore, the awareness indicates the human body and it avoids the statues and photos, which are inert. Of course, statues and photos are essential for worship for beginners, who cannot accept the human form due to ego and jealousy. Hence, you should not criticize the idol worship since the majority will be hurt, which is trying to get rid of the ignorance gradually. You should not condemn the idol worship but you should analyze the truth in it and try to help the beginners to come up. Any effort is with mistake only in the beginning (Sarvarambhahi doshena..Gita). Awareness is the identity card of God for humanity. This can be understood from lakshana from Tarka Shastra. According to that, when you call "Apples", the word apples indicates the possessor of the basket of apples, who is selling apples in the street. Apples are in the basket and the basket is on the head of seller. This does not mean that the seller is apple. Similarly, the awareness is in the human body and God is in the human body. God is neither the awareness nor the human body. God charged the human body containing awareness. The main program of God is to give spiritual guidance. Hence, you cannot take a living being like a bird or animal since it cannot preach the spiritual knowledge. Hence, the awareness indicates human body only. The specialty of awareness is that awareness is the basic material of knowledge and hence from the point of the importance of knowledge in spiritual guidance, the essential basic material (Awareness) is indicated here. Every human being cannot give such spiritual guidance and hence every human being is not God and there is no question of calling every living being as God. Only the top most spiritual preacher like Krishna, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha etc., can be the human form of God. The other spiritual preachers catering to the lower levels are the liberated souls, who are the servants of God incarnated to help His mission. Without understanding all this, if you foolishly argue that awareness is God and since awareness is in every living being, every living being is God, you have not understood even an alphabet in the preaching of Shankara. You require the knowledge of all Shastras to understand Veda and Shankara (Tasmat Shastram..Gita). Brahma Sutras also tell that you can understand God only through Shastras (Shastra yonitvat). The word Shastra is limited to the elaborate logic that is essential to understand Veda. Veda (Shruti) is the primary text. Smruti is the secondary text like Gita. Yukti is the logical analysis, which is the Shastram. Finally, Anubhava is the practical experience and this is the most important. If anubhava is contradicted, your interpretation of the texts is wrong due to your wrong logic. Some times, the experience of a foolish ignorant person stands in the way and to negate this the logic is needed. The experience of scholars (Vidvadanubhava) should be taken and majority is not the point. The texts and logic help to avoid the experience of ignorant majority. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami