The verse holds the structural paradox at the heart of the description. Unattached, yet bearing all things. Beyond the gunas, yet tasting them all. The verse holds three paired contradictions: appearing-with versus possessing; bearing versus clinging; transcending versus enjoying. Each pair refuses easy reconciliation. The chapter's whole strategy is to keep the disciple in the holding.
Shankara reads the paradox as adhyaropa-apavada — superimposition followed by negation. The jneya appears as though it possesses all sense-faculties because the upadhis — hands, feet, eyes — function only by virtue of the one conscious kshetrajna animating them. The multiplicity of limbs across bodies is superimposed on the non-dual Brahman. Once the superimposition is negated, what remains is neither qualified by limbs nor deprived of them — neither sat nor asat in the ordinary sense.
Madhusudana reads the verse as the hermeneutical principle in operation: 'by adhyaropa and subsequent apavada the contentless is unfolded.' Having superimposed all manifestation onto Brahman in 13.13, this verse begins to negate. In paramartha — ultimate reality — Brahman is sans all instruments; through Maya it appears as though all faculties operate in It. The kshetrajna inhabits the inert world through superimposed adhyasa; once the seeing settles, the world's apparent activity is recognized as resting in the witness.
Ramanuja reads with characteristic warmth: Brahman, as antaryamin of all beings, has the full range of indriya-vrittis available to it as prakaras of its own body. Thus it appears furnished with all faculties. Yet by its own inherent nature it needs no instrument — it knows directly without mediation of organs. Unattached to any particular divine body yet sustaining all bodies — sarva-bhrit — it is fully present without being trapped. The bhakta who knows this knows simultaneously the Lord's transcendence and His immanence in every moment.
Madhva reads on the bheda-frame: sarva-indriya-guna-abhasam yet sarva-indriya-vivarjitam — the apparent contradiction resolves only within pancha-bheda, the five-fold real distinction. Hari, the sole svatantra, possesses no sense-organs as instruments of dependence — for dependence belongs to the paratantra jiva. Yet all perceptual power that flickers in any being flows from Him. The verse's paradox is the bhakta's recognition that Hari's mode of presence is metaphysically other than the jiva's mode of presence.
Vallabha insists on sakaratva — the Lord is emphatically formed, not formless. Sakaram eva, with hands, feet, eyes, ears present everywhere by His own sovereign will, svecchaya. The apparent paradox of being nirguna yet guna-bhoktri dissolves in pushti-marga: Brahman as Krishna enjoys all qualities as His own lila-prasada, not as a subject trapped by them. The bhakta tastes this enjoyment as participation.
Shridhara resolves the tension between Brahman's transcendence and the sarvam khalv idam brahma of Chandogya by invoking achintya-shakti — inconceivable power. Svabhaviki jnana-bala-kriya enables the Lord to pervade all beings through their own organs without contradiction. The organs are upadhis through which sarva-vyavahara — universal activity — rests in Him.