Verse 10

In plain words

Here someone might object: You said 'I pour out this whole multitude of beings' — and then you said you just sit there like someone utterly uninvolved. Aren't those two claims pulling against each other? To clear away exactly that doubt, the Lord speaks the next verse.

Think of Me as the overseer — nothing more than pure seeing itself, spread everywhere, never touched by change. That is what I am. And My own māyā, this prakṛti woven of the three guṇas and shaped by nescience, is what actually gives birth to this whole world of moving and unmoving things. Scripture says the same: one god, hidden inside every being, present everywhere, the innermost self of all, watching over every action, the home every creature rests in — witness, knower, utterly alone, beyond all qualities. That, Arjuna, is the one cause behind it: My simply being the overseer is what sets this whole manifest-and-unmanifest world turning through every state it passes through. Every stir of activity anywhere in the world comes down to one thing — something becoming an object before awareness. 'I will enjoy this,' 'I see this,' 'I hear this,' 'this feels good,' 'this hurts,' 'I'll do this for that,' 'I will come to know this' — every such thought, however many you name, rests on nothing but awareness and ends in nothing but awareness. Another Vedic hymn confirms it: 'he who watches over all this, in the highest heaven.' And once you see that there is, in truth, only the one — pure consciousness overseeing everything, with no second experiencer anywhere beside it — you'll see why the very question 'what caused this creation?' can't get real traction; the old hymn already says it best: 'who truly knows? who could ever declare it? Where did it come from, this vast unfolding?' I've told you this Myself, elsewhere: 'knowledge is covered over by ignorance — that is what deludes every creature.'

Close to the Sanskrit

There, [an objector might say that] 'I emit this multitude of beings' (Bhagavad Gītā 9.8) and 'remaining like an indifferent one' (Bhagavad Gītā 9.9) are stated as contradictory; for the removal of that [apparent contradiction, the Lord] says —

By Me, as the overseer whose nature everywhere consists in seeing alone, as the overseer whose self is without modification — by Me, My māyā, [that is,] prakṛti, consisting of the three guṇas, characterized by nescience, brings forth, [that is,] produces, the world together with the moving and the unmoving. And thus a mantra-passage [declares]: 'The one god, hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the inner self of all beings, the overseer of action, the abode of all beings, the witness, the perceiver, alone and without qualities' (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.11) — thus. By this cause, [that is,] this reason, [namely] this state of being the overseer, O Kaunteya, the world, together with the moving and the unmoving, of the nature of the manifest and the unmanifest, revolves through all its states. For all the activity of the world has as its cause the falling into the state of being an object of witnessing — [thoughts such as] 'I shall enjoy this,' 'I see this,' 'I hear this,' 'I experience pleasure,' 'I experience pain,' 'I shall do this for that purpose,' 'I shall know this' — such and other [notions], grounded in awareness, culminate in awareness alone. 'He who is the overseer of this [world], in the highest heaven' (Ṛgveda 10.129.7), and such other mantras show this very meaning. And therefore, because of the absence of any other, second conscious being — [there being], in ultimate reality, no other enjoyer at all connected with all these experiences besides the one god who is nothing but the consciousness overseeing all — [the question] 'For what cause is this creation?' is, in this regard, an untenable pairing of question and answer, [as is clear] from mantra-passages such as: 'Who indeed knows? Who here can declare it? Whence was it born, whence this emanation?' (Ṛgveda 10.129.6). And it has been shown by the Blessed Lord: 'Knowledge is covered by ignorance; by that creatures are deluded' (Bhagavad Gītā 5.15) — thus.

In plain words

“Brother-in-law! It is through Me alone, the mere witness, that Prakṛti brings forth this world of moving and unmoving things; and for this very reason the world goes on in manifold ways. Fools who cannot know My tattva — supreme above all, governing all beings — take Me for an ordinary man! Some great souls worship Me as Brahman. Others worship Me, and Me alone, under different forms and names. Others again worship Me in those forms as jñānayajña and as ātmayajña.”