naham vedair na tapasa
na danena na cejyaya
sakya evam-vidho drastum
drstavan asi mam yatha

"The form you are seeing with your transcendental eyes cannot be understood simply by studying the Vedas, nor by undergoing serious penances, nor by charity, nor by worship. It is not by these means that one can see Me as I am."

Mam = I [ Sri Krishna, Who revealed Viswaroopam], yatha = how, drstavan asi = [you, Arjuna] having seen, sakya = possible, evam-vidho = and understood. In the same way, none can see or understand the Lord by all the methods He is to tell. Arjuna might be under the impression, that what he saw could be seen by other methods also, like by going to temples frequently or by meditation or by gifts or by Vedas. No, none of them could ever reveal Him. We should realize that all those methods, by which the Lord could not be realized, are unknown to us, yet we easily can view Sri Sthala Sayana Perumal. Aham = I [Sri Krishna], na sakhya = can not, vedair vidho = by chanting Vedas or learning Vedas, na tapasa = not by meditation [undergoing sufferings of the body and eating only very little of roots, etc.,], na danena = not by liberal largesse, na cejyaya = not also by yagnas, drastum = can be seen or realized. Arjuna was able to see the Lord quite easily; but this could not be achieved by chanting Vedas, nor by severe meditation, nor by generous largesse, nor by yagnas. But we are able to see the Lord easily at this Kshetram. Pondering over this, we can imagine the huge crowd that visits Mahabalipuram for seeing the ocean, the sculptures and other picnic spots. How many of them come to see the Lord? Very little, perhaps less than 0.1 %. That shows we are not ready to view the Lord, Who is ever ready to reveal Himself. Is it with Bhakti we realize Him or after seeing Him we get Bhakti? If Bhakti were there, we would have come to see the Lord in Mahabalipuram. Should we not go and visit such a great Person waiting to reveal Himself to us? The Lord here had abandoned all His comforts just to reveal Himself to a sage. Therefore, it is requested that while coming to Mahabalipuram for our recreations, we should also visit Bhootatalwar and the Lord here. If we have a will we can do it and that will refine our mind to satva quality. That will induce Bhakti, and our life will be fruitful. Does the Lord mean that it is waste to learn Vedas, or to meditate, or to be philanthropic or to perform yagna? What the Lord means is that without Bhakti all these actions are waste. All these actions should have the objective that our destination is the Lord. Bhakti is the single important aspect to reach the Lord. But, Bhakti has many obstacles and disturbances. To overcome these, rituals are prescribed. These rituals, like chanting Vedas or performing yagnas, focus our mind on the Lord. Such a focused mind will obtain Bhakti and raise our level. Thus both Bhakti and rituals are important and have to be observed as complementary to each other.
                                                                                                            (continued)