Devanagari
गूढश्चरसि भूतात्मा भूतानां भूतभावन ।
न त्वां पश्यन्ति भूतानि पश्यन्तं मोहितानि ते ॥ ४ ॥
Verse text
gūḍhaś carasi bhūtātmā
bhūtānāṁ bhūta-bhāvana
na tvāṁ paśyanti bhūtāni
paśyantaṁ mohitāni te
Synonyms
gūḍhaḥ
—
hidden
;
carasi
—
You are engaged
;
bhūta
—
ātmā — the Supersoul
;
bhūtānām
—
of the living entities
;
bhūta
—
bhāvana — O maintainer of all living beings
;
na
—
not
;
tvām
—
You
;
paśyanti
—
they see
;
bhūtāni
—
living entities
;
paśyantam
—
who are seeing
;
mohitāni
—
bewildered
;
te
—
by You .
Translation
O my Lord, maintainer of all, although You are the Supersoul of the living entities, You remain hidden. Thus being bewildered by You, the living entities cannot see You, although You are seeing them.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
O maintainer of all beings! Although you are the antaryāmī of the living entities and the benefactor of all beings, you move about hidden from them. Thus being bewildered by you, the living entities cannot see you, although you are seeing them.
The Lord is not understood. Though you are the antaryāmī of all beings, and though you are give benefit to all beings (bhūta-bhāvanaḥ), you are hidden from all beings. Thus they do not see you. Another version has bhūta-bhāvana, in the vocative.
Purport
The Lord exists as the Supersoul within everything. He also appears in various incarnations or sometimes empowers a devotee to act as an incarnation. All such forms of the Lord are unknown to the nondevotees. The bewildered conditioned souls think that the supreme enjoyer, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is actually meant to be enjoyed by them for their sense gratification. Praying to God for specific material benedictions and assuming God’s creation to be their personal property, the nondevotees cannot understand the actual form of the Lord. They therefore remain foolish and bewildered. Within the universe everything is subject to creation, maintenance and destruction, and thus the Supersoul is the only actual controller in the material world. Unfortunately, when the Supersoul appears in various incarnations to clarify His position, ignorant persons think that the Supersoul is merely another creation of the modes of material nature. As stated in this verse, they cannot see that person who is actually seeing them, and simply remain bewildered.