एतद्भगवतो रूपं स्थूलं ते व्याहृतं मया मह्यादिभिश्चावरणैरष्टभिर्बहिरावृतम्
etad bhagavato rūpaṁ sthūlaṁ te vyāhṛtaṁ mayā mahy-ādibhiś cāvaraṇair aṣṭabhir bahir āvṛtam
Synonyms
etat—all these; bhagavataḥ—of the Personality of Godhead; rūpam—form; sthūlam—gross; te—unto you; vyāhṛtam—explained; mayā—by me; mahī—the planets; ādibhiḥ—et cetera; ca—unlimitedly; avaraṇaiḥ—by coverings; aṣṭabhiḥ—by eight; bahiḥ—external; āvṛtam—covered..
Translation
Thus by all this, the external feature of the Personality of Godhead is covered by gross forms of planets, et cetera, which were explained to you by me.
Purport
As explained in the Bhagavad-gītā (Bg. 7.4) the separated material energy of the Personality of Godhead is covered by eight kinds of material coverings: namely earth, water, fire, air, sky, mind, intelligence and false ego. All these are emanations from the Personality of Godhead as His external energy. These coverings are just like the covering of clouds for the sun. The cloud is a creation of the sun, yet it actually covers the eyes so that one cannot see the sun. The sun cannot be covered by the clouds. The cloud can at utmost extend a few hundreds of miles in the sky, but the sun is far greater than millions of miles. So a hundred-mile covering is not competent to cover millions of miles. Therefore, one of the various energies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead cannot, of course, cover the Lord. But these coverings are created by Him to cover the eyes of the conditioned souls who want to lord it over the material nature. Actually the conditioned souls are covered by the illusory creative cloud of matter, and the Lord reserves the right of not being exposed to the eyes of the conditioned souls. And because they have no eyes of transcendental vision and because they cannot see the Personality of Godhead, they therefore deny the existence of the Lord as well as the transcendental form of the Lord. The covering of the gigantic material feature is accepted by such men with poor fund of knowledge, and how it becomes so is explained in the following verse.