यो मां पश्यति सर्वत्र सर्वं च मयि पश्यति | तस्याहं न प्रणश्यामि स च मे न प्रणश्यति ||३०||
yo māṃ paśyati sarvatra sarvaṃ ca mayi paśyati | tasyāhaṃ na praṇaśyāmi sa ca me na praṇaśyati || 30 ||
Who sees Me everywhere and all in Me — I am never lost to that one, nor that one to Me.
Word by word (3)
- yo māṃ paśyati sarvatra sarvaṃ ca mayi paśyati
- — who sees Me everywhere, and sees all in Me · yo = who. māṃ = Me (Krishna = the universal Self). paśyati = sees (√paś, the same root as V20's ātmānaṃ paśyati — this seeing is the direct vision of the yogin, not ordinary sight). sarvatra = everywhere, in all places, in all beings. sarvaṃ = all, everything. mayi = in Me. This is V29 restated in the first person: V29 said 'the yogi sees the Self in all beings and all beings in the Self'; V30 says 'who sees Me (= the Self) in everything and everything in Me (= the Self).' The shift to first person (Krishna speaking as the universal Self) makes the sama-darśana teaching personal, relational, devotional.
- tasyāham na praṇaśyāmi sa ca me na praṇaśyati
- — I am not lost to that one, nor is that one lost to Me · tasya = to that one (genitive). aham na praṇaśyāmi = I do not perish/disappear (pra-√naś = to become lost, to perish). sa ca me na praṇaśyati = and that one does not perish to Me. The guarantee: the one who sees Me everywhere cannot lose Me — because they see Me in everything, there is nowhere for Me to be lost. And that person cannot be lost to Me — because they are one of those 'all things' in which I (the universal Self) reside (V29's 'all beings in the Self'). The mutual non-loss is the logical consequence of sama-darśana: when you see the Self in all, separation becomes impossible.
- praṇaśyāmi / praṇaśyati (the mutual non-loss)
- — I am not lost / that one is not lost — the grammar of non-separation · Both verbs use pra-√naś (to perish, to disappear, to become lost). The verse could have said 'I am always present to that one' — but instead it uses the double negative: 'I do NOT become lost, they do NOT become lost.' The negative is stronger: it is not merely that presence is maintained — separation is categorically impossible. For the sama-darśin yogi, the question 'where is God?' cannot even be meaningfully asked, because God/Self is everywhere they look. And from Krishna's side: the one who sees Me everywhere cannot be unseen by Me — we are in mutual vision, mutual presence, without distance.
The one who sees Krishna (= the universal Self) in everything, and sees all of creation as resting within Krishna — that person and Krishna are in permanent mutual presence. The separation that ordinary consciousness experiences is dissolved: you cannot lose what you see everywhere.
A modern analogy
Imagine you suddenly understood that oxygen is everywhere — in the room, in the garden, in the city, in the forest. You could never again feel 'there's no oxygen here' because you now see that it's everywhere. V30's vision of the Self is like that: once you see Krishna/ātman everywhere, the question 'where is God?' becomes as strange as 'where is the oxygen?' You cannot lose what you have learned to see everywhere.
What it does NOT mean
V30 does NOT promise physical protection or worldly security to the devotee. 'I am not lost to that one' means the felt-sense of divine presence, the recognition of the Self — not that bad things won't happen to the devotee's body or life. The 'non-loss' is ontological, not circumstantial.
Take with you
- V30's guarantee ('I am not lost to you, you are not lost to Me') is the Gita's most intimate promise — and it is conditional on V29's vision: see Me everywhere. The practice is the vision; the assurance is its natural consequence.
- The movement from V29 to V30 is the movement from philosophical sama-darśana to personal relationship: V29 is metaphysical (the Self is in all), V30 is relational (Krishna-and-you are in mutual presence). Both are true simultaneously.
- V30's 'na praṇaśyāmi' (I do not become lost) is the Gita's answer to every spiritual crisis — the feeling that God is absent, practice is empty, prayer is unheard. V30 says: if you see Me even faintly, I have not become lost. The seeing itself is My presence.
V30 is the devotional-relational culmination of the V27-31 sequence. V27-28 described the yogi's inner state (brahma-bhūta, brahma-saṃsparśa); V29 described the perceptual shift (sama-darśana); V30 now states the relational consequence in the first person (Krishna speaking as the universal Self). The shift from 'the yogi sees the ātman' (V29) to 'who sees Me' (V30) is not merely grammatical — it is a shift from impersonal to personal, from philosophical to devotional. The Gita consistently works at both registers: Advaita (the Self is all) and Bhakti (I am present to you personally). V30 holds both: the 'Me' Krishna speaks is the universal Self (Advaita), yet the address is intimate and personal (Bhakti).
Advaita lens
In Advaita reading, V30's 'I' (the speaker) is the universal Self/Brahman. 'I am not lost to that one' = the Brahman, which is the only Reality, cannot become absent to the one who has recognised it — for the recognition IS the presence. The yogi who sees Brahman everywhere cannot 'lose' Brahman any more than space can lose itself.
Bhakti lens
V30 is one of bhakti's most beloved verses: Krishna's personal assurance of mutual presence. The bhakta who sees Krishna everywhere receives Krishna's guarantee: 'I never vanish from you, you never vanish from Me.' This is the fulfilment of the bhakta's deepest desire: not just to love the Divine but to be known and held by the Divine in return. V30 is the Gita's statement of that mutual recognition.
Karma-Yoga lens
V30's mutual non-loss means the karma yogi who sees Krishna/Self in all beings cannot become lost in egoic action — the ground of their action is always the universal Self that they see in all. And that Self is always present in them. This is the guarantor of karma yoga's sustainability: you cannot become lost in ego-action when you see the Self in everything including your action.
Modern parallels
Martin Buber's I-Thou philosophy explores the quality of genuine meeting between two presences — where neither is lost in the encounter, where full presence of both is required for the I-Thou relationship. V30's 'I am not lost to that one, nor is that one lost to Me' has structural resonance with the I-Thou concept: neither pole of the relationship disappears in genuine meeting. The analogy is partial — Buber's I-Thou is between equals; V30 is between the individual and the universal Self. But the quality of mutual presence and mutual non-loss is similar.
Practice
Meditation on V30: sit with the question 'Who sees?' — not 'what do I see?' but 'who is the one seeing?' Rest in the one who sees. That seer — the ātman, the universal Self — is what Krishna calls 'Me' in V30. Recognising the seer is recognising Krishna. 'Who sees Me everywhere' — look for the one who sees. Find that one. Rest in that finding.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
Who sees Me everywhere, and sees all in Me — I do not become lost to that one, nor does that one become lost to Me. [1]
He who sees Me in all things, and sees all things in Me, he never becomes sepa- rated from Me, nor do I become separated from him. [4]
He who seeth Me everywhere, and seeth all things in Me — I never vanish from him, nor doth he vanish from Me. [5]
He who sees Me in all things and all things in Me — I am not beyond his sight, nor is he beyond Mine. [6]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Equal vision everywhere: the yogi sees the Self in all beings, and all beings within the Self — the same, everywhere.
Established in unity, worshipping Me as dwelling in all beings — whatever the mode of life, that yogi abides in Me.
I am the same toward all beings — none hateful nor dear to Me — but My devotees are in Me, and I am in them.
Instrument, offering, fire, act, destination — all Brahman. One absorbed in Brahman-action reaches Brahman alone.
Peaceful, fearless, vowed to brahmacharya, mind on Krishna — yoked in practice, with the Supreme as the final goal.
Of all yogis, the one whose inner self is merged in Me, worshipping with śraddhā — that one I hold to be most united.