समं सर्वेषु भूतेषु तिष्ठन्तं परमेश्वरम्।विनश्यत्स्वविनश्यन्तं यः पश्यति स पश्यति॥
samaṃ sarveṣu bhūteṣu tiṣṭhantaṃ parameśvaramvinaśyatsv avinaśyantaṃ yaḥ paśyati sa paśyati
Word by word
The verse says
Whoever sees the supreme lord standing equally in all beings, not perishing among the perishing — that person sees.
In plain words
Yaḥ paśyati sa paśyati — who sees, he sees.
The sentence says the same word twice and means two different things by it: whoever sees this is somebody who can see at all.
It is the plainest definition of insight in the book.
Where you've felt this · in community
A nurse on a long ward round treats the man everybody avoids exactly as she treats the pleasant one in the next bed. She is not making an effort to be fair. She stopped seeing a difference in what they were owed a long time ago, and it shows in her hands.
Going deeper
Equality of regard is presented here as a perceptual achievement rather than a moral one, and that is the chapter's most useful claim.
The verse does not say you should treat all beings equally. It says that whoever sees the same presence equally in all beings is somebody who sees. Fairness is being described as accurate perception — and unfairness, by implication, as a failure to notice something that is actually there.
That is the same structure as Chapter 5, where the wise person regards a learned brahmin and an outcaste with the same eye.
And it changes what to do about your own unfairness. Trying harder to be fair treats it as a weakness of will. The verse treats it as something you have not looked at properly, which is a different problem with a different remedy, and on the whole a more tractable one.