aantosti mama divyaanaam vibhooteenaam parantapa |
esha toodyeshataha prokto vibhootervistaro mayaa || 40 ||
 
There is no end to my divine expressions, O scorcher of foes. For, what has been spoken of my expressions is (just) an indicator.
 
na : no
antaha : end
asti : there is
mama : my
divyaanaam : of divine
vibhooteenaam : expressions
parantapa : O scorcher of foes
eshaha : this
tu : for
udyeshataha : indicator
proktaha : has been spoken
vibhootehe : of the expressions
vistaraha : explanations
mayaa : my
 
Shri Krishna, speaking as Ishvara, began enumerating his divine expressions in the beginning of this chapter. As we have seen so far, he has highlighted the most glorious, powerful and awe-inspiring aspects of his creation. In this shloka, he admits that it is next to impossible to list every single aspect of creation. But he also asserts that every single aspect of creation is divine, since it has sprung out of Ishvara himself.
 
So if everything is divine, why should we seek only a subset of Ishvara’s creations? It is to help us move towards liberation. We tend to be drawn towards people or objects in that universe that naturally attract our senses. If we look at them as mere people or objects, we get bound to them through attachment, which will eventually result in sorrow when we get separated from them. But if we look at them as manifestations of Ishvara, we are automatically protected from further entangling ourselves in samsaara, in the desire-oriented world.
 
Let us go back to the example of Mr. X and his shiny new car. The seed of sorrow was planted the minute he started considering that “the car is mine”. Instead, if Mr. X thinks that the car is Ishvara’s creation, he will immediately drop his sense of “mine-ness” from it. Furthermore, he realizes that the car is a temporary object and will eventually cease to exist. He also comes to know that the sense of joy he derives from buying a new car is not from the car, but it is from the presence of Ishvara inside it. So if something happens to the car, he remains unaffected and unperturbed.
 
Now having gone through the list, we find that a 21st century person like us has difficulty identifying with Puraanic glories that would have been familiar to Arjuna. How should we deal with this issue? Shri Krishna gives the answer in the next shloka.