Bhagavad Gita 4.11

ye yathā māṁ prapadyante

tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham

mama vartmānuvartante

manuṣyāḥ pārtha sarvaśaḥ

 

“As people surrender according to their conception,

I reward them with the corresponding revelation.

Indeed, all of humankind treads on my way,

Attracted to some aspect of me in this world’s display.”

 

My dear Lord, you are both universal and reciprocal. You are universal and all-inclusive in the sense that everyone, my Lord, is on your path. We are all driven in life by something we find attractive. And everything attractive, my Lord, reflects a spark of your divine and supreme attractiveness. Whatever I am searching for—be it sensual pleasure, wealth, power, or popularity—I am actually searching for you, even if I don’t realize it. I beg you, my Lord, bless me with this understanding of you as my ultimate quest, for it can change my entire life. When I realize that all my desperate searches for pleasure are misdirected, I will be able to redirect them properly—toward you.

It is here that your reciprocity, my Lord, comes into play. You reveal yourself to be the source and shelter of everything attractive, but you do so only to the extent that I desire such revelation. O Lord, I desperately need that revelation. And even more, I desperately need the strong desire for you, for that is the very starting point of gaining such revelation.For many lifetimes, my Lord, I have been attracted to so many things in this world, believing falsely that they will give me pleasure. Free me, my Lord, from this illusion, and fill me, O Lord, with the revelation of your glory and beauty. Let that revelation fuel my journey to you.

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04.11 As all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly. Everyone follows My path in all respects, O son of Pṛthā.