But those who worship, all around, the Imperishable, that which cannot be pointed out, since, being unmanifest, it is not within the range of speech and so cannot be pointed out, and is unmanifest because it is not made plain by any means of knowledge; worship being the drawing near to the object to be worshipped by making it one's object as the scripture directs, and the long-continued sitting upon it with a flow of like ideas, unbroken as a stream of poured oil. He states the qualities of the Imperishable to be worshipped: all-pervading, pervading like space; and unthinkable, unthinkable because unmanifest, for what is within the range of the instruments can be thought even by the mind, but this Imperishable, being the opposite, is unthinkable; standing on the summit (kūṭastha). 'Kūṭa' in the world is well known as a thing fair in its visible qualities but flawed within, as in 'a kūṭa-form' and 'a kūṭa-witness'; so too the beginningless seed of transmigration, ignorance and the rest, flawed within, called by such words as māyā and the unmanifest, as in 'know māyā to be Nature, and the wielder of māyā the great Lord' (Śvetāśvatara 4.10) and 'My māyā is hard to cross' (Gītā 7.14): standing over that kūṭa, presiding over it, the Imperishable is 'kūṭastha'. Or else 'kūṭastha' means standing fixed like a mass. For that very reason it is unmoving; and since unmoving, firm, that is, eternal.

But those who worship the imperishable, the own form of the inmost self, indefinable, since, being other than the body, it cannot be defined by the words 'god' and the rest, and so unmade-manifest by the eye and the other organs; everywhere-going, and unthinkable, since, though present everywhere, in the bodies of gods and the rest, it is, being of a kind unlike them, unfit to be thought of in this and that form; and for that very reason fixed-on-a-peak, common to all, that is, free of connection with the shapes peculiar to this and that god and the rest; unmoving, since, being unsubject to transformation, it does not move, does not fall away, from its own peculiar shape, and for that very reason firm, eternal; restraining the troop of the senses, the eye and the rest, that is, restraining the troop of the senses well from all its workings; even-minded everywhere, even-minded, by the having of knowledge for the single form, toward all the selves abiding in the disparate-shaped bodies of gods and the rest; and for that very reason delighting in the welfare of all beings, that is, withdrawn from delighting in the harm of all beings, for the delighting in the harm of all beings comes of the self's conceit of the disparate shapes of god and the rest; those who worship the imperishable thus, they too attain Me indeed; they attain the self of a shape like Mine, free of transmigration. This is the meaning. 'They have come to a likeness with Me' will be said, and it is heard, 'the stainless one reaches the supreme likeness'. Likewise the otherness, from the fixed-on-a-peak indicated by the word 'imperishable', of the supreme Brahman will be stated: 'the fixed-on-a-peak is called imperishable', 'but the highest Person is another'. Now, in 'the higher, by which that imperishable is reached', in the knowledge of the imperishable, the imperishable indicated by the word 'imperishable' is the supreme Brahman itself, just because it is the womb of beings.

Granted that your worshippers are the highest; but what is the fruit for the others? To that Krishna says, with 'but those who' and so on. The indefinability of maya is stated in the Bhagavata, 'because it is beyond reasoning and indefinable, in some there is no certainty about it'. And the Lord is denoted by the word 'God', in 'others, again, the divine' (4.25). The Kashayana scripture in the Samaveda says, 'there was not the non-existent, nor was there the existent then' (Rigveda 8.7.18.1), and from 'there was neither the great element nor the lesser then' onward, 'darkness there was, hidden by darkness in the beginning' (Rigveda 8.7.17.3), and 'for darkness is the unmanifest, unaging, indefinable; this indeed is prakriti'. For she is marked by being all-pervading, beyond thought, and the rest. So the Moksha-dharma says, 'from Him who is the resting-place of Narayana's qualities, unaging and undying, beyond the senses, ungraspable, unborn, free of the untrue, free of harm, free of blemish, of a wholly distinct activity, free of enmity, undecaying, undying, imperishable, formless, the cause of all, of everything, the maker of all, the most everlasting' (Mahabharata 12.342.6); and the Manava, 'this was dark, unknown, without mark, beyond reasoning, unknowable, as if wholly asleep' (Manava 1.5). 'It is called the unchanging imperishable', He will say (15.16). 'Kutastha' means standing in the kuta, that is, space, for the supplementary hymns of the Rigveda say, 'and she stands set in space, and is therefore held to stand in the kuta'. And the Gaupavana branch of the Samaveda says, 'she is all-pervading, unmoving, the womb of the worlds, and she is imperishable, world-pervading, dust-free'.