Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 9, Verse 4: Krishna to Arjuna — Rāja-Vidyā-Rāja-Guhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  By My transcendent nature — avyakta-mūrti (unmanifest form), beyond all sense-contact — this entire cosmos is pervaded, as space pervades a vessel without being the vessel. All beings from Brahmā down to a blade of grass rest in Me as their innermost ātman (self), for nothing can function in transactional reality that is self-less. Yet I do not abide in them the way a tangible object rests in a container — being asaṃsargi (unattached, contact-free), I am in truth even more interior to space than space itself; the relation is not ādheyatā (locative containment) but ātmatā (being the very self).

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The entire cosmos of cit (sentient) and acit (insentient) is pervaded by Me as antaryāmin (inner regulator) whose svarūpa (true form) remains aprakāśita (unmanifest) to those it indwells — just as Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad declares 'He who stands within the earth yet is unknown by the earth.' All beings are mat-stha (abiding in Me) in the sense that they stand as My śarīra (body), subject to My niyamana (governance) and utterly śeṣa (dependent-for-purpose) to Me as śeṣin (the principal). Yet I am not dependent on them — mat-sthitau taiḥ na kaścid upakāraḥ: they contribute nothing to My own standing.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva reads this verse as the pivot from indirect to aparokṣa (direct, unmediated) knowledge: the preceding verse named pratyakṣāvagama (direct realization) as the fruit of this jñāna, and now its content is declared — 'By Me is this all pervaded.' The question 'why then is He not seen?' is answered by avyakta-mūrti: Hari's form is not avyakta by nature but avyakta to the bound jīva (individual self), who remains forever ontologically distinct from Bhagavān even in liberation. The verse thus encodes both Hari's all-pervading lordship and the irreducible tāratamya (hierarchy of being) that is Dvaita's non-negotiable ground.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha locates the verse's avyakta not in mere transcendence but in Kṛṣṇa as kālātmā (time-soul) and the antaryāmin whose māhimya-rūpa (form of divine majesty) remains beyond bāhya-maryādā (the outer-boundary path) while also constituting adhyātma-svarūpa (the inner-self form) of every creature. The world pervaded is prākṛta-cit-acit (the formed cosmos of sentient and insentient), and that pervading is not cold metaphysics but the very expression of Kṛṣṇa's svecchā (free sovereign will) — the cosmos floats in the overflow of His prasāda (grace-power), which is why mat-stha carries a flavour of protected abiding, not mere ontological location.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara anchors the verse in the śruti-text 'tat sṛṣṭvā tad evānuprāviśat' (having created it, He entered into it): the Lord is kāraṇa-bhūta (the causal ground), and the cosmos is effect that has never left its cause — hence mat-sthāni, 'abiding in Me as in their material cause.' Yet even as clay pervades pots without being localised in any pot, He remains asaṅga (unattached) like ākāśa (space): the verse's concluding na cāham teṣv avasthitaḥ is explained by ākāśa-vad asaṅgatvāt — because He is contact-free like space, even full pervasion involves no constraint or conditioning of His nature.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana reads the verse's two halves as two levels of a non-dual ontology: the cosmos is mad-ajñāna-kalpita (projected by superimposition upon Me as adhiṣṭhāna, the substratum), and I pervade it as sat-rūpa and sphurana-rūpa (as being and as luminous self-manifestation) — exactly as a rope-fragment pervades all the illusory serpents superimposed upon it. The objection 'how can limited Vāsudeva pervade everything?' is dissolved by avyakta-mūrti: it is not this particular body but the svaprakāśa-advaya-caitanya (self-luminous non-dual consciousness) that pervades. The final na cāham teṣv avasthitaḥ then severs any reciprocal conditioning: kalpita and akalpita cannot stand in mutual relation, so the substratum is untouched by what appears within it.