क्लेशोऽधिकतरस्तेषामव्यक्तासक्तचेतसाम् | अव्यक्ता हि गतिर्दुःखं देहवद्भिरवाप्यते || ५ ||
kleśo 'dhikataras teṣām avyaktāsakta-cetasām avyaktā hi gatir duḥkhaṁ dehavadbhir avāpyate
kleśaḥ—trouble; adhikataraḥ—greater; teṣām—of them; avyakta-āsakta—attached to the Unmanifest; cetasām—whose minds; avyaktā—toward the Unmanifest; hi—indeed; gatiḥ—progress; duḥkham—with difficulty; deha-vadbhiḥ—by the embodied; avāpyate—is achieved.
“The difficulty is greater for those whose minds are set on the Unmanifest, for the goal of the Unmanifest is hard to attain for embodied beings.”
Krishna is compassionately practical here. An embodied being naturally operates through name, form, and relationship. To wrench the mind away from all qualities and fix it on pure, formless awareness is exceedingly difficult. The mind trained on form can focus; the mind asked to focus on 'nothing in particular' struggles. This is not a condemnation of nirguna practice but a recognition of where most seekers stand.
Do not feel spiritually inferior if you find formless meditation more difficult than devotion to a personal ideal of the Divine. The honest acknowledgment of one's current capacity is itself a mark of wisdom. Begin with the personal form of God or a high ideal, and the formless will reveal itself naturally in time.