📿 Shloka Collection

Maya Tatam Idam Sarvam

Gita 9.4 Bhagavad Gita
📖 Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 9 — Raja Vidya Raja Guhya Yoga
मया ततमिदं सर्वं जगदव्यक्तमूर्तिना ।
मत्स्थानि सर्वभूतानि न चाहं तेष्ववस्थितः ॥
Maya tatam idam sarvam jagad avyakta-murtina
Mat-sthani sarva-bhutani na chaham teshv avasthitah
मया
by me
ततम्
pervaded, spread
इदं सर्वं
all this
जगत्
the world
अव्यक्तमूर्तिना
in an unmanifest form
मत्स्थानि
existing in me
सर्वभूतानि
all beings
न च अहं
and I do not
तेषु अवस्थितः
dwell in them

Krishna speaks one of the Gita's most mind-bending statements. This entire universe is pervaded by me in my invisible form. All beings exist in me — yet I am not contained in them.

Consider the sky. Everything in the world — birds, clouds, mountains, storms — exists within the sky. But the sky itself is not trapped inside any one of those things. Krishna's relationship with creation is something like that.

Both halves of this statement are true at the same time: 'All beings rest in me' and 'I do not rest in them.' This is not a contradiction. It is the nature of the infinite — present everywhere, confined nowhere.

Shlokas 9.4 and 9.5 are best read together. Here, Krishna describes his simultaneous presence and transcendence — the deepest paradox in the Gita.

The Ishavasya Upanishad opens with the same vision: 'Ishavasyam idam sarvam' — all this is pervaded by the Lord. The Gita echoes that Upanishadic insight here.

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