Text 9
aham ātmoddhavāmīṣāṁ
bhūtānāṁ suhṛd īśvaraḥ
ahaṁ sarvāṇi bhūtāni
teṣāṁ sthity-udbhavāpyayaḥ
aham — I am; ātmā — the Supersoul; uddhava — O Uddhava; amīṣām — of these; bhūtānām — living entities; su-hṛt — the well-wisher; īśvaraḥ — the supreme controller; aham — I am; sarvāṇi bhūtāni — all entities; teṣām — of them; sthiti — the maintenance; udbhava — creation; apyayaḥ — and annihilation.
My dear Uddhava, I am the Supersoul of all living entities, and therefore I am naturally their well-wisher and supreme controller. Being the creator, maintainer and annihilator of all entities, I am not different from them.
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī points out that the Personality of Godhead maintains an ablative and genitive relationship with His opulences. In other words, the Lord is not different from all living entities, because they are coming from Him and they belong to Him. The Lord gave a similar explanation to Arjuna in the Tenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā (10.20), beginning with the same words, aham ātmā. Although the Lord describes His external, or material, opulences, the Lord’s position is always transcendental and nonmaterial. Just as the living soul within the body gives life to the body, similarly, the Lord, by His supreme potency, gives life to all universal opulences.