Bhagavad Gita 2.28
अव्यक्तादीनि भूतानि व्यक्तमध्यानि भारत । अव्यक्तनिधनान्येव तत्र का परिदेवना ॥
avyaktādīni bhūtāni vyakta-madhyāni bhārata | avyakta-nidhanāny eva tatra kā paridevanā ||
Translation
O descendant of Bharata, beings are unmanifest in their beginnings, manifest in their middles, and unmanifest in their ends. What is there to lament in this?
Reflection
Which life around you are you mourning the visible middle of, having lost track of its shape?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Two
The three-frame view of any life. Before, hidden. Middle, visible. After, hidden again. The visible part, the part Arjuna is mourning, is the briefest of the three frames. Kā paridevanā? What is there to lament? The phrasing is not dismissive; it is structural. You only ever see the middle. You do not mourn the unmanifest before; you have no quarrel with the unmanifest after. The visible interval gets mourned only because you have lost track of the larger shape. Aurobindo reads this as the verse that quietly relocates the field of view.