Its form, as here described, is nowhere so perceived; for it is like the water of a dream or a mirage, like the māyā of a juggler, like a city of the gandharvas, of a nature that is seen and at once lost. And just for that reason no end, no far edge, no final close, is found; nor any beginning, for no one can grasp 'from here it began and ran on'; nor is any standing-place, any middle, found by anyone. This aśvattha as described, well rooted, its roots well grown, well struck down, very firm: with the sword of non-attachment, non-attachment being the rising-up away from the longings for sons, wealth, worlds and the like, with that firm sword, made firm by the settled turning toward the supreme Self and whetted on the stone of the practice of discernment again and again, having cut the tree of transmigration with its seed, having uprooted it.

This tree, in the form in which it is here set forth, its being rooted above by reason of the four-faced one and the rest, its being branched below by way of the lineage-succession having man for its tip, and its being branched, again, both downward and upward, with the karmas done in the state of being a man for its roots, is not so apprehended by transmigrators. They apprehend only this much: 'I am a man, the son of Devadatta, the father of Yajnadatta, with the possessions that fit that.' Likewise the end of this tree, its destruction, made by non-attachment to the quality-made enjoyments, is not apprehended; and that its beginning is just the attachment to the qualities is not apprehended; and that its foundation is the ignorance that is the conceit of self in the non-self is not apprehended; for it is the ignorance, in which alone it has its standing, that is its foundation. Having cut this ashvattha of the kind described, with its root well grown, well and variously grown of root, with the firm weapon called non-attachment to the quality-made enjoyments, which has right knowledge for its root, then, because of that non-attachment to objects, that abode is to be sought after, to be searched for, gone to which they do not return again. How does the attachment to the quality-made enjoyments, set going from beginningless time, and the contrary knowledge that is its root, turn away? To this the Lord speaks: for the turning away of ignorance and the rest, that very primal Person, the first of the whole, told in such texts as 'with Me as overseer the nature gives birth to the moving and the unmoving', 'I am the arising of all; from Me everything sets going', 'there is nothing higher than Me, Dhananjaya', one should take refuge in. One should take refuge in that very Person. The word 'from where' means: because this engagement in the attachment to the quality-made enjoyments, belonging to the creator of all, is ancient, has run on of old. For this very thing was told by Me before: 'this divine, quality-made maya of Mine is hard to pass beyond; those who take refuge in Me alone cross over this maya'. There is also the reading 'having taken refuge, the engagement is of this measure'. Having taken refuge in that very primal Person, having come to Him for refuge, the engagement that is the means of all this, the turning away of ignorance and the rest, is ancient, has run on of old. The meaning is, the engagement of the ancient seekers of liberation is ancient, of old; for the ancient seekers of liberation, having come to Me alone for refuge, became free of bondage.

It is not perceived as it really stands. Vishnu is its end and beginning, as the Bhagavata says, 'you are the beginning, the end and the middle of this world', and the Moksha-dharma, 'the supreme Brahman, without beginning or end, the gods do not know, nor the seers'. 'By the weapon of non-attachment' means by knowledge joined with the lack of attachment, as the Bhagavata says, 'by the sword of knowledge, whetted by worship' (Bhagavata 11.28.17). And the 'cutting' is just discernment, and thereby Brahman, which stands in the root, comes to be perceived. So it is said in that same scripture, 'discernment is the cutting of this tree; it does not bind that one, while it binds the others'.