[When you are the overseer of material nature, why doesn’t everyone understand your divine position?] Because some people are deluded; they despise and deride me when I manifest in a human form — they don’t know my higher nature as the Supreme Lord of all that exists (11).

[What is their fate?] Their hopes, their actions and their knowledge are all futile because their consciousness is misdirected — they end up abiding in fiendish and demonic natures (12).

[What are the characteristics of those who do understand your divine position?] They are great souls: they abide in my divine nature and worship me single-mindedly, knowing me as the imperishable source of all beings (13).

[By what external characteristics can such great souls be known?] They glorify me constantly, endeavoring with firm vows; they honor me with devotion, staying ever steadfast in worshiping me (14).

[Between these two extremes of those who deride you and those who adore you, are there any other categories of people?] There are those who try to gain knowledge by performing sacrifices — they arrive at three conceptions of the Divine: as the oneness of all existence; as the multiplicity of deities; and as the all-pervasive universal form (15).

[What’s lacking if sacrifices lead to the conception of the Divine as oneness?] Those performing such sacrifices don’t know that the oneness that underlies and unites all aspects of the sacrificial ceremony is me — I am the ritual, I am the sacrifice, I am the offering, I am the healing herb, I am the sacred chant, I am the clarified butter, I am the fire; and I am the pouring out [of the oblation] (16).

[Does your unifying oneness extend beyond the sacrificial ceremony?] It extends to the entirety of existence — I am the father of the universe, the mother, the maintainer and the grandfather; I am both the object of knowledge and the means to knowledge, which includes any purifying agent, the sacred syllable om, and the Rig, Sama and Yajur Vedas (17).

[What other ways are you the oneness that unifies existence?] I am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge and the most dear friend; indeed, I am the creation, the annihilation, the foundation, the treasure house and the imperishable seed (18).

[How do you sustain existence?] I give heat, and I withhold and send forth the rain; I am [the ultimate cause of] death and immortality as well; I am [the ultimate cause of] enduring spirit and ephemeral matter, Arjuna (19).