If there be such a Divine Factor, beyond the usual cognition of the ordinary mortals, how is it that they are not in a position to understand, at least the presence, if not a complete realisation of this great Truth? This question is answered here in this verse.

DELUDED BY THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE THREE gunas, the worlds of living creatures become blind to the divine possibilities in themselves, and live totally a life of mere identification with the matter-envelopments. The post is covered by the ghost — vision for the deluded. It is a fact that as long as the ghost is viewed, not even a portion of the post will be available for the perception of the deluded!

Similarly, identifying with the Maya-products, the Self comes to play the tragic role of the ego, and the ego, in its preoccupations with the outer-world and with its idle imaginations, finds itself incapable of knowing its own true nature. This play of hide-and-seek — ourselves with ourselves in ourselves — is the strange and mysterious play of the ego, creating the universal sorrow and the endless mental squalor therein.

THIS “POWER OF VEILING” IN EVERY ONE OF US IS DEFINED AND DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING STANZA:

Sarvam, all; idam, this; jagat, world, the aggregate of creatures; mohitam, deluded as it is-made to have indiscrimination; ebhih, by these; aforesaid tribhih, three; bhavaih, things, in the forms of attachment, repulsion, delusion, etc; and gunamayaih, made of the gunas, of the transformations of the gunas; na abhijanati, does not know; mam, Me; who am param, transcendental to, distinct, different; ebhyah, from these gunas as referred to above; and am avyayam, undecaying, i.e. free from all (the six kinds of) changes in things, viz birth etc. [See note on p.38.-Tr.] How, again, do they cross over this divine Maya of Visnu, constituted by the three gunas? That is being stated: