Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 9, Verse 4

मया ततमिदं सर्वं जगदव्यक्तमूर्तिना । मत्स्थानि सर्वभूतानि न चाहं तेष्ववस्थितः

mayā tatamidaṃ sarvaṃ jagadavyaktamūrtinā | matsthāni sarvabhūtāni na cāhaṃ teṣvavasthitaḥ

Translation

By Me all this world is pervaded, My form unmanifested. All beings dwell in Me; and I do not dwell in them.

— Alladi Mahadeva Sastri

Word meanings

mayā

by me

tatam

pervaded

idam

this

sarvam

all

jagat

world

avyaktamūrtinā

unmanifested, aspect, whose, by him

matsthāni

in me, stand, thus, them

sarvabhūtāni

all beings

na

not

ca

and

aham

I

teṣu

in them

avasthitaḥ

placed

Śaṅkarācārya's commentary

All this world is pervaded by My Highest Being, My form being invisible to the senses. In Me, of unmanifested form, dwell all beings from Brahmā down to the plant. No being devoid of the Self can ever become an object of experience. Wherefore they dwell in Me — they are what they are in virtue of Me, the Self, underlying them all. Since I am the Self of all those beings, it would seem to the deluded as though I dwell in them. Wherefore I say: I do not dwell in those beings, because of the absence of contact with others, unlike corporeal things. I am, certainly, the innermost essence even of the ākāśa. That which is unconnected with any object cannot be contained anywhere as though in a receptacle.