The Unity of the Self, the One Atma Existing Everywhere

The Gita proclaims that the divinity is present everywhere and in everyone, as the all-pervading reality we call God. But the Gita declares an even higher stage than this. It teaches not only that God is everywhere, but that the inner truth behind the I that you refer to when speaking of yourself is your immortal self, your highest self, one and the same with God. And that highest self in you is also the highest self of everyone. It is the atma, one with the divinity. In essence, you and everyone and everything are God.

Therefore, in addition to teaching the unity of God, expressed through universal brotherhood, the Gita also teaches the unity of the atma, the one self existing everywhere. The Gita shows that the atma, which exists as the true self in you, exists as the same self in all other human beings, and in animals and birds and every other kind of being as well. Just as the Gita instructs you to regard happiness and misery as equal, so also it instructs you to recognize the one atma as existing equally in all beings, whether they are humans, animals or plants.

You must have the conviction that right from microscopic creatures and insects up to the creator, the same divinity exists uniformly everywhere. That is why a great poet, brimming with devotion, sang:

O Lord, You have been living in the ant as well as in the creator. You have come as Krishna and Rama. But truly, you live in every form. I see you everywhere, in every being I encounter.