When the universe is wound up at the time of its periodic annihilation, all the inert objects and bodies of living beings that hitherto were manifested by the Lord’s Māyā become disconnected from His sight. Then, since He maintains no association with them during the period of universal dissolution, they in fact no longer exist. In other words, material manifestations have real, functioning existence only when the Lord turns His attention to the creation and maintenance of the material cosmos. The Lord is never “within” these objects in any material sense, but He does mercifully pervade them all as the impersonal Brahman, and as the Paramātmā He enters within every atom and also accompanies the jīva souls in their individual embodiments. As the Lord describes in His own words in the verses of Bhagavad-gītā (9.4-5):

mayā tataṁ idaṁ sarvaṁ
 jagad avyakta-mūrtinā
mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni
 na cāhaṁ teṣv avasthitaḥ

na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni
 paśya me yogam aiśvaram
bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho
 mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ

“By Me, in My unmanifest form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them. And yet everything that is created does not rest in Me. Behold My mystic opulence! Although I am the maintainer of all living entities and although I am everywhere, I am not part of this cosmic manifestation, for My Self is the very source of creation.”