9.4 All beings rest in me Krishna speaks
मया ततमिदं सर्वं जगदव्यक्तमूर्तिना
मत्स्थानि सर्वभूतानि न चाहं तेष्ववस्थितः
mayā tatam idaṁ sarvaṁ jagad avyakta-mūrtinā
mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni na chāhaṁ teṣhvavasthitaḥ
By me, in my unmanifest form, all this world is pervaded. All beings rest in me; I do not rest in them.
Explanation
All beings rest in me. I do not rest in them.
The same asymmetry as 7.12, stated the other way round: pervading everything from an unmanifest form, containing without being contained.
And then the next verse immediately contradicts it, deliberately. The pair has to be read together or neither half means what it says.
Going further
Word by word
- mayā
- by me
- tatam
- pervaded
- idam
- this
- sarvam
- entire
- jagat
- cosmic manifestation
- avyakta-mūrtinā
- the unmanifested form
- mat-sthāni
- in me
- sarva-bhūtāni
- all living beings
- na
- not
- cha
- and
- aham
- I
- teṣhu
- in them
- avasthitaḥ
- dwell
Long-press or right-click the image to copy it. Nothing is uploaded — it is drawn here, on your device.
All beings rest in me; I do not rest in them. And then, immediately, in 9.5: and yet beings do not rest in me.
The contradiction is deliberate and it is not resolved. The Gita states the relation, denies it, and calls the whole thing yogam aiśhwaram — my mastery — as if to say that any statement made about it will have to be taken back.