Text 29
apy uddhava tvayā brahma
sakhe samavadhāritam
api te vigato mohaḥ
śokaś cāsau mano-bhavaḥ
api — whether; uddhava — O Uddhava; tvayā — by you; brahma — spiritual knowledge; sakhe — O friend; samavadhāritam — sufficiently understood; api — whether; te — your; vigataḥ — is removed; mohaḥ — the illusion; śokaḥ — lamentation; ca — and; asau — this; manaḥ-bhavaḥ — born of your mind.
My dear friend Uddhava, have you now completely understood this transcendental knowledge? Are the confusion and lamentation that arose in your mind now dispelled?
Śrī Uddhava had been bewildered by considering manifestations of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s own potency to be separate from Him. Uddhava’s lamentation arose because he thought himself separated from Lord Kṛṣṇa. Actually, Śrī Uddhava is an eternally liberated soul, but the Lord placed him in bewilderment and lamentation so that this supreme knowledge of the Uddhava-gīta could be spoken. Lord Kṛṣṇa’s question here indicates that if Uddhava had not perfectly understood this knowledge, Lord Kṛṣṇa would have explained the same thing again. According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, since Śrī Uddhava is the intimate friend of Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Lord’s question here was in a friendly, playful spirit. The Lord was well aware of Uddhava’s complete enlightenment in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.