Bhagavad Gita 10.19

śrī-bhagavān uvāca

hanta te kathayiṣyāmi

divyā hy ātma-vibhūtayaḥ

prādhānyataḥ kuru-śreṣṭha

nāsty anto vistarasya me

 

Listen now, O noblest one,

I’ll speak my glories, briefly spun;

Only a glimpse can here be shown,

For my vast expanse is endless, unknown.

 

My dear Lord, what I can see depends not only on my eyes, but also on my intelligence, for it is the intelligence that makes sense of what the eyes perceive.

O infallible Lord, you are present everywhere, yet you are seen nowhere by eyes ignorant of spiritual truth—especially eyes deluded and degraded by material attachments. And yet you are endlessly merciful. Even to those limited to a material vision, you offer an opportunity to perceive your presence—if they learn to see you as the source, the sustainer, or the essence of whatever they find materially attractive. Please include me among those fortunate few who learn to sense and see your presence.

O Supreme Guru, may my vision be educated by studying your words and internalizing them, so that they become an integrated part of my natural worldview. And bless me, O Lord, so that my vision may also be elevated through the practice of bhakti-yoga. By the purification resulting from bhakti practice, as my lower, mundane attachments weaken, let their corresponding sense objects occupy less and less space within my mind. And as my spiritual attachments increase, may they become prominent—indeed, dominant—within my mind.

O omnipresent Lord, let me thus become increasingly absorbed in you, both in this life and beyond it.

***

10.19 The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: Yes, I will tell you of My splendorous manifestations, but only of those which are prominent, O Arjuna, for My opulence is limitless.