Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 9: The Royal Knowledge and Royal Secret

Bhagavad Gita 9.11

avajānanti māṃ mūḍhā mānuṣīṃ tanumāśritam | paraṃ bhāvamajānanto mama bhūtamaheśvaram ||

The deluded disregard me when I take on a human form. They do not know my higher nature as the great Lord of all beings.

Modern context

When the divine appears in an ordinary human form, most people overlook it. They see only a person like themselves. The verse speaks of Krishna, but there is a wider lesson in it. The sacred often comes in plain clothes: in a patient teacher, a quiet neighbour, a stranger who helps. People who expect it to arrive in grandeur miss it when it arrives in simplicity.