O Arjuna, what need is there for you to know all these details? I exist, sustaining this whole universe by a portion of Myself. (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 10 – Verse 42)
I have given only a few examples to please My devotees whose minds are still wandering out through the gates of the senses, so that they may remember Me anyhow. But My infinite majesty reaches infinitely beyond this manifestation, which is known as the universe. That is only one small part, like the crust of ice on the surface of water. All the water in the lake does not turn into ice, only a part, and that part is all you can see of the lake; the rest is hidden under the ice.
Like the unfrozen water, the Unmanifest cannot be seen. My other parts never come within creation, within maya. That remains always free. Of a heap of earth, only the moist part can be shaped into pots. The dry part remains formless. The eternal snow that covers the summit of the Himalayas only partly melts; some parts never melt. The heat does not reach there. Below that, sometimes it is frozen and sometimes it melts and forms streams and rivers. So one part of the Sat-chitananda upholds and forms this universe. Other parts never come into manifestation but remain the Absolute always. All these examples are only an attempt to explain that which cannot really be explained but can only be experienced and perceived directly in samadhi.
All is maya after all. Bondage and freedom alike are ideas in maya. One part becomes the universe, while some parts are neither creation nor non-creation. In the Vedas it is said that ‘All beings form His foot.’ The rest of His being is never covered. Even if we know the entire Cosmos, we would know only a small part of God, only the part of Him that is caught, as it were, in the realm of time, space and causation, the part that has entered into the mind of man. What then is beyond the part we know? Nobody can tell, because nobody has ever been there. That part is ever free. Those who enter there do not return. Different philosophies try to explain that. There is only One Infinite. All else is maya, a passing delusion, and a cloud before the sun.
Sri Krishna speaks all these words, only to help those who cannot grasp the highest Truth. It is an attempt on the part of Bhagavan to lead the understanding of man, step by step, through the finite to the Infinite, through manifestation to the unmanifest Brahman. Infinity remains infinite, no matter how we try to split it up, divide it or take from it. Truth alone exists and that Truth is God. ‘Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else — that is the Infinite. Where one sees something else, hears something else, understands something else —that is the finite. The Infinite is immortal, the finite mortal.’