अव्यक्तं व्यक्तिमापन्नं मन्यन्ते मामबुद्धयः ।परं भावमजानन्तो ममाव्ययमनुत्तमम्॥
avyaktaṃ vyaktim āpannaṃ manyante mām abuddhayaḥparaṃ bhāvam ajānanto mamāvyayam anuttamam
Word by word
The verse says
People without much sense think that I, who am unmanifest, have taken on a form — not knowing my higher nature, unchanging, with nothing above it.
In plain words
The complaint is about shrinking, not about images.
Taking him to have come into a form is not the error. Taking the form to be the size of him is.
What gets lost is param bhāvam — the larger nature that was never confined to it.
Where you've felt this · in study
You have only ever known your teacher as the woman at the front of a classroom. Then you see her at a bus stop on a Saturday with two shopping bags and a small child, and for a second it is strange. Some part of you had filed her as a teacher and nothing else. She was never only that. You simply never had occasion to see the rest.
Going deeper
The mistake being named is not the use of images. Krishna is about to spend two chapters describing himself in vivid form, and later the book says plainly that a form is the easier road for most people.
The mistake is treating the form as the whole size of him. Avyakta means unmanifest — not invisible, but not used up by any one appearance. When something unlimited turns up in a shape you can deal with, the shape is a kindness, not a measurement.
We do this with people all the time, mostly harmlessly. The trouble starts when the file becomes the person.
The usable part is this. Whatever picture of God you carry, and everyone carries one whether they believe or not, you are not being asked to throw it out. You are being asked not to mistake the doorway for the room.