यत्र न अन्यत् पश्यति न अन्यच् शृणोति न अन्यद् विजानाति सः भूमा अथ यत्र अन्यत् पश्यति अन्यच् शृणोति अन्यद् विजानाति तत् अल्पम् यः वै भूमा तत् अमृतम् अथ यत् अल्पम् तत् मर्त्यम् सः भगवः कस्मिन् प्रतिष्ठितः इति स्वे महिम्नि यदि वा न महिम्नि इति
yatra na anyat paśyati na anyac śṛṇoti na anyad vijānāti saḥ bhūmā atha yatra anyat paśyati anyac śṛṇoti anyad vijānāti tat alpam yaḥ vai bhūmā tat amṛtam atha yat alpam tat martyam saḥ bhagavaḥ kasmin pratiṣṭhitaḥ iti sve mahimni yadi vā na mahimni iti
"Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, knows nothing else — that is the Boundless. But where one sees something else, hears something else, knows something else — that is the small. The Boundless is immortal; the small is mortal." — "On what, then, is it established, sir?" — "On its own greatness — if indeed on greatness at all."
15ec14716e32 · published Jul 26, 2026, 11:48:34 PM UTC
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The Bhūman is defined by the absence of "another": where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else — there is the Boundless. Every finite thing has a boundary, and a boundary is always a neighbour, an "other" pressing in from outside; the experience of the small is always an experience of two: the thing and its edge. The Bhūman is what has no neighbour: the advitīya of the sixth chapter, "one without a second" (6.2.1). Hence it is immortal: death is the work of a boundary, and the Boundless has nowhere to end.
This must be heard exactly: not "in the Bhūman things vanish" but "in the Bhūman there is nothing alien". For bhakti this is a description not of emptiness but of the fullness of love: there one sees nothing else because everything is his and in him; nothing falls out of the Full, and the gaze nowhere strikes a "not-his".
Nārada's question about a support gets a lightning answer: "on its own greatness — if indeed on greatness at all" (yadi vā na mahimni). Everything else stands on something other; the Bhūman stands on itself, and even that is said with a reservation: even the word "support" applies to him only conditionally. Sanatkumāra shows the edge of language itself — and in the next verse will explain what he is disavowing.