बहूनां जन्मनामन्ते ज्ञानवान्मां प्रपद्यते।वासुदेवः सर्वमिति स महात्मा सुदुर्लभः॥
bahūnāṃ janmanām ante jñānavān māṃ prapadyatevāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ
Word by word
The verse says
At the end of many births, the one who has come to know surrenders to me, seeing that all this is Vāsudeva. Such a great soul is very hard to find.
In plain words
Bahūnāṃ janmanām ante — after many births.
This is not being sold as a quick result. Krishna is being honest about the timescale.
And what finally lands is one sentence: all of this is God. Not part of it. All.
Where you've felt this · in growing older
At twelve, your mother's cousin starts learning classical singing. She gives it up at nineteen, when it stops going anywhere. She comes back to it at forty-five. The exercises are the same exercises in the same order, and her old teacher's daughter now teaches them. What has changed is that she is no longer trying to get anywhere with them.
Going deeper
Vāsudevaḥ sarvam — all this is Vāsudeva — is the line the chapter has been walking toward, and the word to weigh is sarvam, all.
Not all this comes from God, which most people can agree to without anything happening to them. All this is God. The traffic, the bad week, the person you cannot stand. There is nothing left over to be outside it.
The traditions split on how literally to take that, and the split is real. Some read it as identity: there is one thing here, appearing as many. Others read it as pervasion: everything rests in God without being God. The verse does not settle the question, and pretending it does would be dishonest.
What is not in dispute is the timescale. Many births. If you have been at this for some years and still lose your temper in traffic, the book is not surprised by you.