अवजानन्ति मां मूढा मानुषीं तनुमाश्रितम्।परं भावमजानन्तो मम भूतमहेश्वरम्॥
avajānanti māṃ mūḍhā mānuṣīṃ tanum āśritamparaṃ bhāvam ajānanto mama bhūta-maheśvaram
Word by word
The verse says
The foolish look down on me when I take a human form, not knowing my higher nature as the great lord of all beings.
In plain words
The complaint is about dismissal, and about what causes it.
Not wickedness. Not argument. Just the ordinariness of the appearance.
Something that turns up in a plain form gets valued at the price of the form.
Where you've felt this · at work
A new person joins the office and spends his first fortnight asking basic questions in meetings. Half the floor has quietly written him off by the end of the month. He turns out to be the one who rebuilt the system everybody has been complaining about for six years.
Going deeper
Familiarity is the most effective disguise there is, which is the uncomfortable point underneath this verse.
We assess things by their packaging faster than we can think, and the assessment closes the question. A plain form does not invite a second look, so the second look does not happen. That is not stupidity in the ordinary sense; it is efficiency, and it works most of the time.
The verse is about what it costs the rest of the time.
There is a personal edge to it that is easy to slide past. The people you have already priced — the relative who repeats himself, the colleague who is not impressive in meetings — were priced quickly, once, and probably years ago. Nothing about that process was designed to be accurate.