Those who are successful in their attempts at stilling their mind and cleaning their intellect of its disturbing attachments and desires, come to recognise the glory of the Self and experience Its Infinite Beatitude. But it is also true that all those who mechanically put in plenty of self-effort (Yoga) do not necessarily succeed. Hundreds are those who complain that though they were regular in their spiritual programme for years, no appreciable amount of self-development has come to them. One may wonder why this should be so.

This moot point is being answered here very logically. “THOUGH STRIVING, THOSE OF UNREFINED MIND AND DEVOID OF WISDOM, PERCEIVE HIM NOT.” Two conditions are unavoidable if meditation is to ultimately yield its promised result: (a) The purification of the mind is generally defined as removal of agitations (Vikshepa) created by one’s false ego-centric attachment to sense-objects; (b) Also, the intellect is to be tuned up properly to a correct understanding of the nature of the Self, and thus all doubts of the misty mind (Avarana) that veil its right perception are also to be removed through study, reflection and practice. If these two adjustments are not properly accomplished, through practice of devotion (Bhakti-Yoga) and service (Karma-Yoga), all attempts at meditation in the “Path-of-Knowledge” can only end in failure.

In short, the stanza emphasises that those whose minds have not been properly regenerated through practice of self-control of the senses, and who have not renounced and abandoned their evil ways of looking at things from limited ego-centric standpoint, whose pride has not yet been subdued — such seekers, however sincerely and ardently they may meditate, have little or no chance of unfolding themselves into their diviner possibilities; THEY BEHOLD HIM NOT. Though the Self is the nearest, and therefore, most easily perceivable, yet, all do not see Him, because of their complete slavery to the enchantments of the sense-objects.

So far the Self has been indicated as: (1) That, which cannot be illumined by the known phenomenal sources of light, such as the Sun, the Moon and the Fire; (2) That having reached which, none returns from that State of Perfection; (3) That, of which the individual entities (Jivas) are as though only a part.

Hereafter, in the following four stanzas the Immanence of the Lord — (a) as the All-illumining Light of Consciousness, (b) as the All-sustaining Life, (c) as the subjective warmth of Life, in all living organisms, and (d) as the Self in all the hearts — is being described.

TO SHOW THIS VERY GOAL AS THE ESSENCE OF ALL AND THE REALITY BEHIND ALL THESE EXPERIENCES, KRISHNA PROCEEDS TO GIVE A SHORT SUMMARY OF THE LORD’S IMMANENCE, IN THE FOLLOWING FOUR VERSES:

And some, however, yoginah, the yogis of concentrated minds; yatantah, who are diligent; pasyanti, see; evam, this one, the Self under discussion; as avasthitam, existing; atmani, in themselves, in their own intelligence. They realize, ‘I am This.’ Acetasah, the non-discriminating ones; akrta-atmanah, who lack self-control, who have not purified themselves through austerity and control of the organs, who have not desisted from bad conduct, who are not tranquil and are proud by nature; na, do not; pasyanti, see; enam, this one; api, though; (they be) yatantah, diligent-even though they be striving with the help of the valid means of knowledge such as the scriptures. With a view to speaking of the all-pervasiveness of the State and the fact of Its being the substratum of all empirical dealings, the Lord speaks in brief through the following four verses of the divine manifestations of that State which the light of fire, sun, etc. do not illumine though they are the illuminators of everything; and reaching which the aspirants of Liberation do not return again towards mundane existence; and of which State the individual souls, owing to their conformity with the diversity of limiting adjuncts, are parts, just as spaces enclosed in pot etc. are ‘parts’ of Space: