The people of this world are deluded by the three gunas or qualities of nature. Affection, attachment and infatuated love, hatred are all the characteristics of the gunas. On account of delusion created by these qualities they are not able to break worldly ties and turn their minds towards the Supreme Lord though the Lord is the inmost Self of all beings and the object of direct and immediate perception.
The Lord in His purest essence is untouched by the gunas which belong only to His prakriti. The Self is the essence which does not have the six modifications of the body viz. birth, growth, existence, old age, decay and death.
This verse answers the question as to why the ordinary mortals are not able to understand at least the presence of the great truth about the spirit and matter. The answer in short is that deluded by the modifications of the three Gunas the living beings become blind to the divine possibilities in themselves. So long as a ghost is seen in the post, the vision of the post will not be available to the perceiver. Thus deluded, the ego does not realize the Supreme as different from it.
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan comments: ‘According to Sankara the Supreme expresses His regret that the world does not know Him, the Supreme Lord who is, by nature, eternal, pure, enlightened and free, the Self of all beings, devoid of attributes (gunatheetha) by knowing whom the seed of the evil of samsara is burnt up. We see the changing forms and not the Eternal Being of which the forms are the manifestations. We see the moving shadows on the wall whereas we must see the Light from which the shadows emanate’.
WHO CAN REALIZE THE SUPREME?
