Bhagavad Gita · 7.24 · Self-Knowledge and Enlightenment·24 of 30
अव्यक्तं व्यक्ितमापन्नं मन्यन्ते मामबुद्धयः।परं भावमजानन्तो ममाव्ययमनुत्तमम् ॥
avyaktaṁ vyaktim āpannaṁ manyante mām
abuddhayaḥ paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto mamāvyayam anuttamam
Sanskrit recitation
What you worship shapes you · 7.20–7.30 · Teaching
Translation
The foolish think of Me, the Unmanifest, as having manifestation, not knowing My higher, immutable, and most excellent nature.
Meaning
The ignorant take Lord Krishna as a common mortal. They think that He has taken a body like ordinary human beings from the unmanifested state on account of the force of Karma of the previous birth. They have no knowledge of His higher, imperishable and selfluminous nature as the Highest Self. They think that He has just now come into manifestation, though He is selfexistent, eternal, beginningless, endless, birthless, deathless, changeless, infinite and unmanifest.
After Swami Sivananda
What you worship shapes you· 7.20–7.30→
Teachers usually read this idea across several verses together, one shared reflection covers the whole unit.
- 7.20Those whose wisdom has been taken away by this or that desire, go to other gods, following this or that rite, led by their own nature.
- 7.21Whatever form any devotee desires to worship with faith, I make that same faith of his firm and unflinching.
- 7.22Endowed with that faith, he engages in the worship of that form and obtains his desired outcome, which is ordained by Me alone.
- 7.23Verily, the reward (fruit) that accrues to those men of small intelligence is finite. The worshippers of the gods go to them, whereas My devotees come to Me.
7.24The foolish think of Me, the Unmanifest, as having manifestation, not knowing My higher, immutable, and most excellent nature.
- 7.25I am not manifest to all, veiled as I am by the Yoga-Maya. This deluded world does not know Me, who am unborn and imperishable.
- 7.26I know, O Arjuna, the beings of the past, the present, and the future; however, no one knows Me.
- 7.27O Bharata, all beings are subject to delusion at birth due to the delusion of the pairs of opposites arising from desire and aversion, O Parantapa.
- 7.28But those men of virtuous deeds, whose sins have come to an end and who are freed from the delusion of the pairs of opposites, worship Me steadfastly, with their vows.
- 7.29Those who strive for liberation from old age and death, taking refuge in Me, realize in full that Brahman, the whole knowledge of the Self, and all action.
- 7.30Those who know Me with the Adhibhuta (pertaining to the elements), Adhidaiva (pertaining to the gods), and the Adhiyajna (pertaining to the sacrifice) know Me even at the time of death, remaining steadfast in mind.
Word-by-word→
- avyaktam
- formless
- vyaktim
- possessing a personality
- āpannam
- to have assumed
- manyante
- think
- mām
- me
- abuddhayaḥ
- less intelligent
- param
- Supreme
- bhāvam
- nature
- ajānantaḥ
- not understanding
- mama
- my
- avyayam
- imperishable
- anuttamam
- excellent
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