BG Chap 7 - The eternal Lord is not seen by everyone at all times

If the Lord has an eternal form and activities, why cannot He be seen by everyone at all times? The Lord is never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. He is covered by His internal potency and thus the foolish do not know Him, who is unborn and infallible. The Lord is always present with His associates, qualities and pastimes in some universe but just like the sun He is not visible to all, being covered by yogamāyā. If Mount Meru were present in the middle of the effulgent zodiac, then the sun would not be visible within the zodiac. In the same way, within Kṛṣṇa’s abodes, yogamāyā is always present. Thus Kṛṣṇa is not always visible to even those people who are presently dwelling in His abodes of Mathurā and Dvārakā. And the foolish people do not understand His Śyāmasundara form. Rejecting Him, the ocean of auspicious qualities, they worship impersonal Brahman.

Out of mercy, the Lord is visible only to His devotees. To the non-devotees, He is covered by māyā engaged in yoga – that energy by which bewilderment of the materialists takes place. The yoga māyā also acts as yoga in making the impossible possible in relation to the Lord’s acintya powers. Thus the word yoga-māyā can be used to indicate the material māyā or the spiritual māyā according to the context. The unintelligent do not know the Lord, who is without change: His form, powers, omniscience and other qualities are unchanging in their natures. When Kṛṣṇa was present there were only a few people who could understand Him to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the assembly of Kurus, when Śiśupāla spoke against Kṛṣṇa's being elected president of the assembly, Bhīṣma supported Him and proclaimed Him to be the Supreme God. Similarly, the Pāṇḍavas and a few others knew that He was the Supreme, but not everyone. He was not revealed to the nondevotees.

Is the Lord in ignorance because He is covered by māyā? No, the Lord is not corrupted by māyā, who is subservient to Him, who arises from His powers, and who serves Him from a distance. Therefore Kṛṣṇa knows all things in the past, present and future, but no one knows Him. Even among millions of jñānīs, one who knows Kṛṣṇa is very rare. Even Lord Śiva, the most omniscient person cannot know the Lord completely because the Lord is covered by either māyā or yogamāyā according to the qualification of the person. If Kṛṣṇa, the form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, were māyā, material, as the impersonalists consider Him to be, then like the living entity He would change His body and forget everything about His past life. Anyone with a material body cannot remember his past life, nor can he foretell his future life, nor can he predict the outcome of his present life; therefore he cannot know what is happening in past, present and future. Unless one is liberated from material contamination, he cannot know past, present and future.