Bhagwad Gita - Post 169

Verse 28

Samam sarveshu bhooteshu

Tishthantam parameshwaram;

Vinashyatswavinashyantam

Yah pashyati sa pashyati.

He sees, who sees the Supreme Lord, existing equally in all beings, the unperishing within the perishing.

Samaṁ sarveṣu bhūteṣu tiṣṭhantaṁ

That Being is equally present in all as the Self of all. It is the Self of the ant and the elephant and the human being and the God. 

The distinction among them is due to the appearance of their subtle bodies and gross bodies, but the life that is behind the subtle and gross bodies is common—as sunlight is common and appears to be colored or distorted according to the nature of the glasses that we put on. 

The Supreme Lord exists in an equilibrated fashion everywhere. 

“He sees” is the expression with which the translation of the verse begins. Here, the “seeing” is that Seeing which is not the effect of any other seer, which is not illumined by any other seer. This means, the being referred to in the verse is the Eternal witness, the SELF.

Only when one exists as SELF ILLUMINED SEER, Pure Atman, “can see the Supreme Lord, existing equally in all beings, the unperishing within the perishing.” 

People die, everything perishes, and all things get destroyed.  But in the midst of this destruction taking place perennially, perpetually, right from creation—in the midst of this flux and destruction and movement—there is an unmoving Eternity. 

This apparently ever changing Jagath, has to have a changeless phenomenon, the substratum, which holds the Jagath. And that which holds thus, is and must be changeless, unmoving eternity, i.e., Pure Consciousness or Purusha or Purushottama, as referred in the Bhagwad Gita.

Verse 29

Samam pashyan hi sarvatra

Samavasthitameeshwaram;

Na hinastyaatmanaa’tmaanam

Tato yaati paraam gatim.

Because he who sees the same Lord dwelling equally everywhere does not destroy the Self by the self, he goes to the highest goal.

Mostly we kill the Self with the self—hinastyātmanātmānaṁ. 

A kind of atma hatya is going on when the Self is forgotten and only objects are remembered. 

Only external things are in that person’s memory; the Self is completely obliterated from experience. That state of affairs—where the consciousness of the Self being there is completely obscured by intense concentration on objects outside—is called spiritual suicide; it is killing the Self with the self. 

That is, we do not know that we are existing at all as the Self. We know that there is a world outside, we are busy with things outside, but we are not busy with our Self. 

But having known the equally distributed consciousness of the Paramatman, equally distributed Eternity—knowing this, seeing this, beholding it, and contemplating it, one will not be subject to this otherwise common experience of Self-destruction; and knowing this, one attains to the Supreme State, yāti parāṁ gatim. 

Love.