यथा सर्वगतं सौक्ष्म्यादाकाशं नोपलिप्यते।सर्वत्रावस्थितो देहे तथाऽऽत्मा नोपलिप्यते॥
yathā sarva-gataṃ saukṣmyād ākāśaṃ nopalipyatesarvatrāvasthito dehe tathātmā nopalipyate
Word by word
The verse says
As space, going everywhere, is not stained because it is so fine — so the self, present everywhere in the body, is not stained.
In plain words
Space, again. The same image the book reached for in Chapter 9.
Smoke fills a room and the room is not smoky afterwards in the way a cloth would be.
Saukṣmyāt — because of its fineness. Not because it resists. Because there is nothing for anything to grip.
Where you've felt this · in creative work
A room has had a hundred arguments in it, three illnesses, two wakes and a great many ordinary Tuesdays. Repaint it and it is a room. The air in it this morning is not carrying any of that, and never was.
Going deeper
Space is the image this book returns to whenever it needs to describe presence without involvement, and it works better than any of the alternatives.
Chapter 9 used it for how beings rest in the divine — as the wind rests in space, going everywhere, touching nothing. Here it is applied to the self in a body. The same property is doing the work both times: space is in contact with everything and is not marked by anything, because there is nothing of it for a mark to adhere to.
It also does something no other image manages. Space is not elsewhere. It is not resisting.
That is why the comparison is worth more than a metaphor about armour or distance. What is being described is not something that holds itself apart from your life. It is in contact with every part of it, continuously, and the contact leaves nothing behind.