July 30, 2026
yac cā ’pi sarvabhūtānāṁ bījaṁ tad aham arjuna
na tad asti vinā yat syān mayā bhūtaṁ carācaraṁ (X-39)
nā ’nto ’sti mama divyānāṁ vibhūtīnāṁ paraṁtapa
eṣa tū ’ddeśataḥ prokto vibhūter vistaro mayā (X-40)
X/39. Whatever is the seed of all beings, that also am I, O Arjuna. There is no being whether moving or unmoving that can exist without me.
X/40. There is no end to my divine glories, O Arjuna; but this is a brief statement by me of the particulars of my divine glories.
Swamiji's Commentary
There is an interesting dialogue in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad between a guru and disciple. The guru asks the disciple to bring a small (banyan) fruit – a variety of the fig. The fruit is then broken. There are thousands of small seeds in it. One of them is isolated and broken.
“What do you find?” asks he guru.
The disciple replies: “Nothing.” “Ah, well, nothing? It is that
nothing that has given birth to this gigantic tree.”
That "nothing" contains the complete blue-print of the whole tree to its minutest details. That is what makes the mango tree spring from the mango-seed and a banyan tree from the banyan seed, without the slightest error. Scientists nowadays are busy analyzing the mysterious factor in the human seed that is responsible for transmitting various characteristics from parent to offspring. Even this search is bound, eventually, to lead us to the feet of God, provided, of course, that at the right moment we allow thought with its concepts and images, as also reason with its thesis and antithesis, to drop away, yielding place to pure wonderment.
Beyond this ‘seed’ is the un-manifest, transcendental godhead. That godhead is clothed, as it were, with this manifestation-potential; even as each isolated, invisible electron coursing through a copper-wire contains the potentiality of the manifestation of its light and power. This manifestation-potential and the consciousness ‘within’ it are not really two different and distinct entities, but one and the same. Hence, if we zealously pursue our quest, anything – moving or unmoving – will take us to the goal, God.