Constancy in the knowledge of the adhyātma: knowledge whose object is the Self and the rest is the knowledge of the adhyātma; the state of being constantly in it is constancy. The seeing of the purpose of the knowledge of the truth: the knowledge of the truth is that which arises from the ripening of the cultivation of humility and the rest, the means to knowledge; its purpose is liberation, the stilling of transmigration; the looking to that is the seeing of the purpose of the knowledge of the truth, for it is on looking to the fruit of the knowledge of the truth that one engages in the carrying-out of its means. This, from freedom from self-esteem down to the seeing of the purpose of the knowledge of the truth, is declared to be knowledge, because it is for the sake of knowledge. Other than this, the opposite of what has been described, is ignorance: self-esteem, pretence, violence, impatience, crookedness and the like is to be known as ignorance, so that it may be shunned, since it is a cause of engagement in transmigration. By the knowledge described, what is to be known? In answer to that wish He says 'the thing to be known, which' and the rest. Now, humility and the rest are restraints and observances; the thing to be known is not known by them, for humility and the rest are not seen to determine any thing; everywhere it is the knowledge whose object a thing is that is seen to determine that thing to be known, and by a knowledge of one object another is not grasped, as fire is not grasped by a knowledge whose object is a pot. There is no fault here: it has been said that they are called knowledge because they are occasions of knowledge, and because they are co-operating causes of knowledge.

That own form of the inmost self, which, by the means of freedom from conceit and the rest, is the thing to be known, the thing to be attained, I shall declare; knowing which one attains the self, immortal, free of the matter-born properties of birth, age, death, and the rest. 'Beginningless': that of which no beginning is found is beginningless; for this inmost self has no origination, and just for that reason no end. And revelation says, 'the wise one is not born nor does it die'. 'Having Me as its highest': that of which I am the highest is 'having Me as its highest'; for it was said, 'other than this, know My other, higher nature become the soul'; for the own form of the self, by being the Blessed One's body, has being subordinate to the Blessed One as its single savour. And so revelation: 'he who, standing in the self, is within the self, whom the self does not know, whose body the self is, who governs the self from within'; and likewise 'He is the cause, the lord of the lords of the organs', 'the lord of the primal matter and the field-knower, the lord of the qualities', and the rest. 'Brahman', joined with the quality of greatness, a thing other than the body and the rest, of itself free of the bounding by the body and the rest, that is the principle of the field-knower. For it is heard, 'and he becomes fit for endlessness'. The being-bounded-by-the-body of it is made by karma; the endlessness belongs to one freed of the bondage of karma. The word 'Brahman' is used of the self as well: 'having transcended these qualities, he becomes fit for becoming Brahman', 'for I am the foundation of Brahman, the immortal and undecaying', 'become Brahman, serene of self, he does not grieve, he does not crave; equal toward all beings, he gains the supreme devotion to Me', these statements show it. 'It is not called existent, nor non-existent': since it is free of the two states, the effect-state and the cause-state, the own form of the self is not spoken of by the words 'existent' and 'non-existent'. For in the effect-state, by bearing the names and forms of god and the rest, it is called 'existent'; and in the cause-state, by being unfit for that, it is called 'non-existent'. So revelation: 'non-existent indeed this was in the beginning; from that the existent was born', 'this was then unmanifest; it is unfolded by name and form', and the like. But the connection of the self with the two states, effect and cause, is made by the wrapping of the karma-shaped ignorance, not by its own form; so by the words 'existent' and 'non-existent' the own form of the self is not spoken of. And though, in 'non-existent indeed this was in the beginning', the cause-state supreme Brahman is spoken of, still, since the supreme Brahman in the cause-state has for its body the subtle conscious-and-insentient thing unfit for the division of name and form, the own form of the field and the field-knower too, in the cause-state, is denoted by the word 'non-existent'; but, that state of the field-knower being made by karma, its purified own form is not to be indicated by the words 'existent' and 'non-existent'.

This is a brief sub-gloss. For a fuller reading of this verse, see Madhusūdana, Śaṅkara, or Rāmānuja above.

'The seeing whose aim is the knowledge of truth' means the consulting of scripture for the sake of direct knowledge.