Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 9, Verse 4
Verse 4
Hard VerseThe Yoga of Royal Knowledge and Royal Secret
By Me, in My unmanifested form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them.
Context & Meaning
A profound paradox: all beings exist within the Divine, yet the Divine is not contained within them. God pervades everything with His unmanifest presence — like space that fills a pot without the pot containing space. The Divine is both the ground of all existence and infinitely beyond it. This is the mystery of divine immanence and transcendence held in a single breath.
Scholar Commentaries
2 commentaries · Public domainAdi Shankaracharya
AdvaitaAll things are in Brahman as effects in their cause, yet Brahman is not modified by them. Just as clay pervades all clay-pots but is not diminished or changed by the pots, Brahman pervades all beings without being limited by any of them.
Ramanujacharya
VishishtadvaitaAll beings form the body of the Lord. In this sense they are "in Him." Yet He transcends them as the soul transcends the body — present within, yet not reducible to any part of it.