Classical Vedanta · part of the Mahabharata
Bhagavad Gita 10.20
The Self seated in the heart of all beings
अहमात्मा गुडाकेश सर्वभूताशयस्थितः। अहमादिश्च मध्यं च भूतानामन्त एव च॥
I am the Self seated in the hearts of all beings. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings.
What this verse points to
Krishna is answering a request to describe his divine manifestations, and he begins not with anything cosmic but with the innermost point of every living thing. Whatever else the divine is said to be in this chapter, it starts here.
For practice, the consequence is direct: the thing being sought is not somewhere else, and it is not distributed unevenly. It is stationed identically in you and in everyone you will meet today.
Sit with it
End your sit by bringing to mind one person you find difficult, and hold the possibility that the same thing is seated in them.
About the Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita is a 700-verse dialogue set on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in which Krishna counsels the warrior Arjuna at the moment he refuses to fight. Across eighteen chapters it draws together the paths of action, devotion, and knowledge into a single teaching on how to act without being bound by action. It sits inside the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata and has been the most widely commented-upon text in the Vedantic tradition, from Shankara onward.
References to this text are given as chapter.verse — here, 10.20.