Should I learn forms?

Many people start learning taichi by learning taichi forms. Yang style long form, simplified 24 techniques Yang form, Chan family form, Wu form, you name it. But is this the right approach? For me, I started out learning Wang-ping Village Yang style form with a full 64 techniques. Then I went on learned the simpilfied Yang style form. When I met master Canh, I learned a couple more Trieu family Taichi forms. But I feel after learning so many forms, there is something missing. I could do the forms really smooth, make it look like a dance but somehow I felt they are empty inside. What am I missing? Master Canh knows a lot of forms and willing to teach me more but I resisted. I did not want to learn another taichi form that I will forget 5 years from now. Why there are so many forms? How many do you have to learn before you know them all? Is there a common denominator to all the forms? What is the essence of doing forms?

When I met my master Anthony Ho-Nan-Jie, he could care less if I learned form or not. All he told me is to listen, to clear your mind. That's what I did for two years, most of the time just listen and analyze his taichi teaching. He repeats over and over a certain point. The funny thing is something he said a year ago make no sense at the time. You have no idea how to make it work and suddenly now it make total sense. He kept saying "Forms are not important!". But couple days ago, suddenly he told me to practice forms. Is this a contradiction? I thought it was odd and then suddenly it dawned on me. There was a story that in the old day in China, an internal style sifu would make his students doing stances and chi-kung for two, three years before he would start teaching any techniques. This is where internal martial arts is different than external martial arts. External martial arts styles learn doing forms and techniques immediately. Internal martial arts, in the old day, it probably takes a few years for the students to build up their chi before they can perform their forms or techniques properly. And this usually only taught to indoor students. In the 18th century, when the Ching dynasty told taichi masters whom are Hans to teach taichi to the Ching officials and their families, legend said they taught them only the forms with no essence. So you can see how it got diluted from here. In mordern days, it is also hard to imaging for people to spend a couple years to learn "NOTHING" (take note of the word "NOTHING"). So the teachers are either taught a washed down version of taichi or just teach forms with no essence to keep most students happy. If that is what the taichi teachers learned in the first place so it's not really his fault because he just re-transmitt what he learned.

So should I learn forms? Or may be I should rephrase the question: "Is form important or not important?" The correct answer is ...