उत्तमः पुरुषस्त्वन्यः परमात्मेत्युदाहृतः | यो लोकत्रयमाविश्य बिभर्त्यव्यय ईश्वरः || १७ ||
uttamaḥ puruṣas tv anyaḥ paramātmety udāhṛtaḥ yo loka-trayam āviśya bibharty avyaya īśvaraḥ
uttamaḥ—the greatest; puruṣaḥ—personality; tu—but; anyaḥ—another; paramātmā—the Supreme Soul; iti—thus; udāhṛtaḥ—is said; yaḥ—who; loka-trayam—the three worlds; āviśya—entering into; bibharti—sustains; avyayaḥ—inexhaustible; īśvaraḥ—the Lord.
“But the Supreme Person (Purushottama) is other than these—He is spoken of as the Supreme Soul (Paramatma), who enters the three worlds and sustains them as the inexhaustible Lord.”
Beyond both the perishable (all embodied beings) and the imperishable (the unchanging substratum), there is a third and highest reality—Purushottama, the Supreme Person. He is not merely the undifferentiated Absolute but the dynamic Lord who enters and sustains all three worlds. This vision reconciles the impersonal Absolute with the personal God of devotion.
The concept of Purushottama teaches that the highest reality is both transcendent and immanent—beyond the world yet actively sustaining every moment of it. This gives spiritual practice a living quality: the Divine is not an abstract idea but the sustaining presence within every breath, heartbeat, and moment of awareness. Seeking the Divine is thus never a journey away from life but deeper into it.