What you seek is not elsewhere. It is outside you, inside you, and it is only your seeing that calls it far.
The verse holds four opposites together without strain: outside and inside, still and moving, far and near. None of them is a claim about location. Each is a claim about where your attention currently rests.
What is to be known stands both outside every being and within it, both still and in motion. So subtle is it that no sense can grasp it, yet it is at once utterly far and utterly near.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna is midway through describing the field-knower, the reality this whole chapter asks you to distinguish from the field of body and mind. Having said in the previous lines that it shines through the senses while remaining free of them, he now places it everywhere at once: on both sides of every boundary you could draw.
The teaching
Take your body as a boundary, the skin where you seem to end. What lies past that skin gets called outside; what lies within gets called inside. Both are named so that nothing is left out. If you heard only outside and inside, you might imagine a gap somewhere in the middle where this reality simply is not present. There is no such gap, which is why the verse adds a second pair: it is the unmoving and the moving both, the very being of whatever exists, still or in motion. What appears in front of you as a body that moves and changes is not a veil hiding the thing to be known. It carries nothing but that reality's own nature, the way a rope glimpsed in dim light is mistaken for a snake, yet the snake you thought you saw was never anything but the rope. And still, despite standing as the appearance of everything, it remains unknown to most people, not because it is far away but because it is subtle, formless as space, unfit for the plain, pointing kind of knowing that says 'this is that.' To the one who knows, it is never hidden; it is recognized already in words like 'all this is the Self.' So the same one reality is, without any contradiction, both the farthest thing there is and the nearest thing there is. It is far, unreachable across countless years, for the mind still turned outward toward objects. It is near, nearer than anything could be, for the mind that has turned inward and recognized this as its own innermost Self. The distance was never in it. It was always in the seeing.
The doubt that rises
If this is truly my own innermost Self, nearer to me than anything else could be, why does it still feel utterly hidden and far away, and what, short of a change in location that was never needed, would actually close that felt distance?
Where the paths divide
Read as one non-dual base on which every division, even body and Self, is only imagined.
There is a single reality, and outside, inside, stillness, and motion are all appearances cast upon it, exactly as a snake seen in the dark is really only a rope. The very sense that body and Self are two separate things is itself an act of imagination, not a report of any real division. Unknowability here is subtlety, not distance, like open space; and far and near are simply this one reality as it shows up to the ignorant and to the knower respectively, the ignorant unreachably far because unknowing, the knower nearest of all because the reality in question is nothing but their own Self.
Read as a real distinction between the Self and the body it pervades, shown by evidence rather than mere assertion.
The Self genuinely differs from the body, and this can be shown: a dead body performs no supporting, no devouring of what sustains it, no bringing of anything into being, so whatever performs these acts while the body lives must be other than the gathered elements themselves. Outside and inside, on this reading, name two real relations, encompassing from beyond and indwelling as ruler from within, not a dissolving of all difference into one substance. Near and far track how prepared the seeker is to recognize this real, distinct Self through devotion.
Read honestly as a silence in the source, with only a cautiously flagged extension offered beyond it.
No comment survives from Madhva at this exact verse, and the honest reading says so plainly rather than inventing one. What can be offered only as a marked extrapolation from his wider Dvaita position is that the far and the near named here might track a soul's own graced fitness, granted moment to moment by the Lord's will, rather than any capacity the soul holds on its own. This extension is not his attested word at 13.16, only a cautious reach from what he holds elsewhere.
Read honestly as a shared, general treatment, with only a flagged extension beyond what survives.
Abhinavagupta's surviving commentary treats this verse together with several around it as one continuous passage, with the substantive remark recorded earlier, at 13.13, where he notes only that certain phrases point to Brahman's oneness with the awareness every school describes. Nothing distinct addresses this verse's own images of subtlety or distance. Extended cautiously, and marked as such, a Kashmir Shaiva reading might take far and near as naming contracted awareness against recognized awareness, but this is offered as extrapolation, not as his recorded comment on this line.
Read through homely, handled comparisons rather than abstract argument.
The Self is inside and outside its own forms exactly as gold is inside and outside a bangle it has been shaped into, or as water is inside and outside the wave it has become. Unknowability is simply its subtlety and formlessness, nothing more mysterious than that. Farness marks a mind still bound to visible change; nearness marks the same mind once it recognizes this reality as its own inmost Self, an old mantra holding both together: it moves and moves not, it is far and near, within all this and outside all this.
Read as the precise technical mechanism behind an old paradox.
Nothing imagined ever stands apart from its unimagined base, and this alone explains everything the verse claims. The moving and unmoving world simply is that base, carrying nothing but its nature, so unknowability follows necessarily from having no distinguishing mark that the senses could seize, never from any real remoteness. This is why the very same reality can be called farther than the far and yet seated right here, in the seeker's own heart, without any strain on the logic.
Every source that speaks agrees the felt distance reports on the seeker, not on the reality sought. But two of the six voices, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, simply do not speak at this exact line, and this page keeps that silence visible rather than filling it with invented confidence. What remains open, then, is not only the metaphysical question of how one reality can be genuinely both far and near, but the more modest question of what a fair reading owes a source that has nothing to say: silence honestly reported, or a reach toward what such a thinker would likely have said, clearly marked as a reach and never as their word.
A question to carry
Where is your own attention resting right now, on what lies outside you or on what lies within, and does calling the thing you seek 'far away' describe it, or only describe where you are currently looking?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So do not set out to travel toward what is already outside you and within you. Let the seeing simply turn, gently, without straining, and notice that what you called far was never actually anywhere else.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Krishna has just begun to describe the knowable in the previous lines; here he places it everywhere in relation to every being, so that no gap is left anywhere for it to be thought absent.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Outside and inside are named together, and unmoving and moving besides, so that no gap is left where it might be thought missing.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse places what is to be known on both sides of every possible line: outside beings and within them, unmoving and moving. Naming both pairs matters, since naming only outside and inside might suggest a gap in the middle where it simply is absent. There is no such gap. What appears as the moving, changing world is itself the very thing being sought, not a veil over it.
What appears as the changing world is not a veil over the thing to be known; it carries nothing but that reality's own nature, the way a snake seen in dim light carries nothing but the nature of a rope.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Unknowability here is read as a matter of subtlety, not of remoteness. Formless as space, it cannot be grasped by senses built to seize shapes and qualities, and so it is not fit for the plain, pointing knowledge that says 'this is that,' even while it stands as the very appearance of everything the senses do perceive.
Unknowability is subtlety, not remoteness: formless as space, it cannot be seized by senses built to grasp shapes, even while it stands as the appearance of everything those senses do perceive.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Far and near are read as the same one fact seen from two conditions, not two different facts. It is far, unreachable across countless years or leagues, for whoever lacks the means to know it; it is nearest of all, with nothing in between, for whoever has those means, because it is nothing other than that very person's own Self.
Far and near are the same one fact under two conditions of the seer, not two different facts about what is sought.
Across ViśiṣṭādvaitaRāmānujaIn Rāmānuja’s words
Both commentators who argue at length for the Self's distinctness from the body do so from the same evidence: a dead body shows no supporting, devouring, or bringing-into-being, so whatever performs these cannot be identical with the elements gathered as the body. The Self is thereby shown, not merely declared, to be other than what it pervades.
Where the sources themselves fall silent, as they do for two of the six voices at this exact line, that silence is named plainly rather than filled with invented confidence.
Across Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaMadhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Madhva and Abhinavagupta’s words
Where the acarya's own words on this exact verse are thin or absent, that thinness is treated as a fact to be reported honestly rather than papered over. Madhva's silence at 13.16 and Abhinavagupta's shared, general treatment of 13.13 through 13.18 are both named as such, with any further reading clearly marked as extrapolation from their general positions rather than attested comment.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads the Self as genuinely other than the body it pervades, shown by a real argument: a corpse performs no supporting, devouring, or producing, so the field of elements cannot itself be the agent of these acts, and the Self that does perform them must be distinct from what it inhabits. Outside and inside name real relations of encompassing and indwelling, not a dissolving of difference.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
No comment from Madhva survives at this verse; the source states this plainly. Extended with caution from his general Dvaita position elsewhere, and flagged as extrapolation rather than his recorded word here, one might read the verse's far and near as tracking each soul's own dependent fitness, granted or withheld by the Lord's will, rather than as an argument attested at 13.16 itself.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara stays with homely comparison: the Self is inside and outside its products as gold is inside and outside a bangle, as water is inside and outside a wave. Farness and nearness are read as the difference between a mind still bound to visible change and a mind that has recognized this same reality as its own inmost Self, anchored in the old mantra that holds far and near together without strain.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana gives the sharpest technical account: an imagined thing never stands apart from its unimagined base, so the moving and unmoving world simply is that base under different names. Unknowability follows necessarily from having no distinguishing mark for sense-perception to seize, not from any real remoteness, which is why the same reality is at once described as farther than the far and yet seated right here, in the cave of the heart.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Sit with the plain fact this verse insists on: whatever seems most outside you and whatever seems most inside you are not, finally, two different things to search in two different directions. Let your attention rest without straining toward either boundary. Notice, instead, where your seeing habitually turns, outward toward objects or inward toward the one who watches them, since the commentators agree that this turning, not any actual movement, is what makes the same reality feel far or feel near.
So do not go looking elsewhere for what is already outside you and within you. Let your seeing simply turn, and notice what was never actually far.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse places what is to be known on both sides of every possible line: outside beings and within them, unmoving and moving. Naming both pairs matters, since naming only outside and inside might suggest a gap in the middle where it simply is absent. There is no such gap. What appears as the moving, changing world is itself the very thing being sought, not a veil over it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Unknowability here is read as a matter of subtlety, not of remoteness. Formless as space, it cannot be grasped by senses built to seize shapes and qualities, and so it is not fit for the plain, pointing knowledge that says 'this is that,' even while it stands as the very appearance of everything the senses do perceive.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Far and near are read as the same one fact seen from two conditions, not two different facts. It is far, unreachable across countless years or leagues, for whoever lacks the means to know it; it is nearest of all, with nothing in between, for whoever has those means, because it is nothing other than that very person's own Self.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Both commentators who argue at length for the Self's distinctness from the body do so from the same evidence: a dead body shows no supporting, devouring, or bringing-into-being, so whatever performs these cannot be identical with the elements gathered as the body. The Self is thereby shown, not merely declared, to be other than what it pervades.
Rāmānujācārya
Where the acarya's own words on this exact verse are thin or absent, that thinness is treated as a fact to be reported honestly rather than papered over. Madhva's silence at 13.16 and Abhinavagupta's shared, general treatment of 13.13 through 13.18 are both named as such, with any further reading clearly marked as extrapolation from their general positions rather than attested comment.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Both read the verse as describing one non-dual base upon which every apparent division, including the felt difference between body and Self, is imagined the way a rope is mistaken for a snake. Outside and inside, moving and unmoving, are appearances cast upon that single base, never realities distinct from it. Its hiddenness is subtlety, not distance; the same base is far for the ignorant and near, as one's own Self, for the knower.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the Self as genuinely other than the body it pervades, shown by a real argument: a corpse performs no supporting, devouring, or producing, so the field of elements cannot itself be the agent of these acts, and the Self that does perform them must be distinct from what it inhabits. Outside and inside name real relations of encompassing and indwelling, not a dissolving of difference.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
No comment from Madhva survives at this verse; the source states this plainly. Extended with caution from his general Dvaita position elsewhere, and flagged as extrapolation rather than his recorded word here, one might read the verse's far and near as tracking each soul's own dependent fitness, granted or withheld by the Lord's will, rather than as an argument attested at 13.16 itself.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
No comment distinct to this verse survives; Abhinavagupta's text treats 13.13 through 13.18 together, with the substantive remark recorded only at 13.13, where he notes Brahman's oneness with the awareness every school describes, without unpacking this verse's own images. Extended cautiously, and marked as such, a Kashmir Shaiva reading would take far and near as contracted versus recognized awareness rather than as spatial facts.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara stays with homely comparison: the Self is inside and outside its products as gold is inside and outside a bangle, as water is inside and outside a wave. Farness and nearness are read as the difference between a mind still bound to visible change and a mind that has recognized this same reality as its own inmost Self, anchored in the old mantra that holds far and near together without strain.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana gives the sharpest technical account: an imagined thing never stands apart from its unimagined base, so the moving and unmoving world simply is that base under different names. Unknowability follows necessarily from having no distinguishing mark for sense-perception to seize, not from any real remoteness, which is why the same reality is at once described as farther than the far and yet seated right here, in the cave of the heart.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If this is genuinely my own innermost Self, nearer than anything could be, why does it still feel utterly unknown and far away?
The verse itself separates two things you may be running together: unknownness and distance. What keeps it hidden is subtlety, not remoteness, formless as space and so unfit for the plain, pointing knowledge that grasps shapes and qualities. Feeling that it is far is a true report of your present unknowing, not a true report of any actual gap.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where a real argument for its distinctness from the body can be shown, it can also be shown that this distinctness never implies separation in space: the Self supports, devours, and brings forth precisely as what is nearest to and most intimate with the body it is not identical to, never as something located elsewhere.
Rāmānujācārya
Be honest, too, about where the sources fall silent. No developed argument survives from every acarya on this exact point, and pretending otherwise would trade honesty for false comfort. What can be said without strain is only this: farness and nearness are read, across every source that does address them, as a report on the seeker's own condition, not on any distance in what is sought.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Sit with the plain fact this verse insists on: whatever seems most outside you and whatever seems most inside you are not, finally, two different things to search in two different directions. Let your attention rest without straining toward either boundary. Notice, instead, where your seeing habitually turns, outward toward objects or inward toward the one who watches them, since the commentators agree that this turning, not any actual movement, is what makes the same reality feel far or feel near.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.