Bhagavad Gita 13.14

Verse 14

सर्वतः पाणिपादं तत्सर्वतोऽक्षिशिरोमुखम् | सर्वतः श्रुतिमल्लोके सर्वमावृत्य तिष्ठति || १४ ||

Transliteration

sarvataḥ pāṇi-pādaṁ tat sarvato 'kṣi-śiro-mukham sarvataḥ śrutimal loke sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati

Synonyms

sarvataḥ—everywhere; pāṇi—hands; pādam—legs; tat—that; sarvataḥ—everywhere; akṣi—eyes; śiraḥ—heads; mukham—faces; sarvataḥ—everywhere; śrutimat—having ears; loke—in the world; sarvam—everything; āvṛtya—covering; tiṣṭhati—exists.

Translation

With hands and feet everywhere, with eyes, heads, and faces everywhere, with ears everywhere — That exists, encompassing all in the world.

Multi-Tradition Commentary

Ramanuja (Vishishtadvaita)

This verse describes the omnipresence of Brahman in immanent terms — hands everywhere, eyes everywhere, ears everywhere. Ramanuja interprets this as the Lord being the inner self of all beings, their faculties being His faculties. The arms and legs of every creature are His arms and legs; the eyes of every creature are His eyes. This is not pantheism (the world is God) but panentheism (God encompasses and transcends the world).

Practical Application (Modern Life)

Practice seeing the Divine in the faculties themselves — the hand that works, the eye that sees, the ear that hears. Each act of perception, when consecrated with awareness, becomes a form of worship. The great mystics across traditions have reported this: ordinary seeing becomes sacred seeing, ordinary hearing becomes sacred listening, when the Knower is recognized in the known.

Chapter Content

View all shlokas in Chapter 13

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