Sanskrit
समोऽहं सर्वभूतेषु न मे द्वेष्योऽस्ति न प्रियः । ये भजन्ति तु मां भक्त्या मयि ते तेषु चाप्यहम् ॥
samo 'haṃ sarvabhūteṣu na me dveṣyo 'sti na priyaḥ ye bhajanti tu māṃ bhaktyā mayi te teṣu cāpy aham
Translation
The same am I to all beings; there is none hateful to Me nor dear. They verily who worship Me with devotion, they are in Me, and I also in them.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A claim about Krishna’s own nature rather than a practice to adopt: strict impartiality (samo ‘haṃ sarvabhūteṣu, “the same am I in all beings”) sits in the same verse as a promise of mutual indwelling for devotees specifically — “they in Me, I also in them.” The pairing isn’t a contradiction to explain away; impartiality describes the ontological baseline, devotion describes a relationship a being can choose to activate on top of it. The mutual-indwelling language here anticipates the far more developed treatment of divine immanence in chapters 10 and 15.