Srimad-Bhagavatam: Canto 10 - Chapter 1 - Verse 48

Sanskrit:

नमोऽस्तु तेऽध्यात्मविदां परात्मनेअनात्मने स्वात्मविभक्तमृत्यवे ।सकारणाकारणलिङ्गमीयुषेस्वमाययासंवृतरुद्धद‍ृष्टये ॥ ४८ ॥

ITRANS:

namo ’stu te ’dhyātma-vidāṁ parātmaneanātmane svātma-vibhakta-mṛtyavesa-kāraṇākāraṇa-liṅgam īyuṣesva-māyayāsaṁvṛta-ruddha-dṛṣṭaye

Translation:

Let me offer my obeisances unto You. You are realized as the Supreme Soul by those who know the Absolute Truth, whereas in Your form of time You impose death upon the forgetful souls. You appear both in Your causeless spiritual form and in the created form of this universe, thus simultaneously uncovering the eyes of Your devotees and obstructing the vision of the nondevotees.

Purport:

When the Lord appears before His devotees in His eternal, spiritual form, their eyes become “uncovered” in the sense that all vestiges of illusion are dispelled and they drink in the beautiful vision of the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead. For the nondevotees, on the other hand, the Lord “appears” as material nature, His universal form, and in this way He covers their vision so that His spiritual, personal form remains invisible to them. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī gives another interpretation of this verse, based on an alternative understanding of anātmane, a form of the word anātmā: Various classes of men know the Absolute Truth in different ways. The devotees of the Lord who are in the reciprocal mood of neutral admiration (śānta-rasa) meditate on the Supreme as possessing a divine, personal form (ātmā or śrī-vigraha) transcending all aspects of material illusion. The impersonal philosophers (jñānīs) conceive of Him as formless (anātmā). And the envious demons see Him in the form of death.