Having gained consummation by worshipping the Lord with his own action, that is, having gained, by His grace, the consummation that is the fitness of body and senses for the standing in knowledge, 'having gained consummation' is restated for the sake of what follows. What is the following matter for whose sake it is restated? The Lord says: learn from Me, in brief, Kaunteya, the manner, the way, in which one reaches Brahman, the supreme self, by the standing in knowledge. To show this promised attainment of Brahman concretely, he says: 'that supreme consummation of knowledge'. 'Consummation' here means the culmination, the bringing to completion. Of what? Of the knowledge of Brahman, the highest of which is described. And of what nature is it? Of the nature of the knowledge of the self. And of what nature is the self? As described by the Lord and by the texts of the Upanishads and by reasoning. It may be objected: knowledge takes the form of its object; but the self is not held anywhere to be an object of knowledge, nor to have a form. It may be replied that the self is heard to have a form in 'sun-coloured', 'of the nature of light', 'self-luminous'. No, for the purpose of such texts is to deny that it is of the nature of darkness. When, on the denial of forms like substance and quality, the self might be taken to be of the nature of darkness, texts like 'sun-coloured' serve to deny that. And form is specifically denied of it in 'formless'; and it is shown to be no object in 'its form does not stand within sight, no one sees it with the eye', 'soundless, untouchable', and the rest. So it does not hold that knowledge takes the form of the self. Then how is there knowledge of the self? Whatever knowledge has whatever object takes the form of that object, and the self has been said to be formless; if both knowledge and the self are formless, how is there a standing in the contemplation of it? The answer: because the self is utterly stainless, utterly clear, utterly subtle; and because the understanding too, like the self, can be stainless and so on, the understanding can take on the semblance of the self's consciousness. The mind has the semblance of the understanding, the senses the semblance of the mind, the body the semblance of the senses; and so the common people place the notion of self in the mere body. The Lokayatas, who hold consciousness to be of the body, say the person is the body endowed with consciousness. Others hold consciousness to be of the senses, others of the mind, others of the understanding. Still others have taken even what is inward of that, the unmanifest, called the unevolved, the seat of ignorance, to be the self. Everywhere, from the understanding down to the body, the semblance of the self's consciousness is the cause of the delusion about the self. For this reason knowledge of the self need not be enjoined as something to be brought about; what must be brought about is only the removal of the superimposition of name, form, and the other non-self upon it, not the bringing about of the consciousness that is the self, since the self is seen as conditioned by the forms of all the objects superimposed by ignorance. It is for this very reason that the Buddhist Vijnanavadins came to hold that there is no thing at all apart from cognition, and that, on the strength of cognition's being self-evident, it is independent of any other means of knowledge. Therefore in regard to Brahman only the setting aside of what ignorance superimposes is to be done; no effort is needed to know Brahman, for it is utterly evident. To those whose understanding is carried off by the particular forms of name and form fashioned by ignorance, what is utterly evident, easily known, nearer than the nearest, their very self, seems unknown, hard to know, very far, as if something else, to people without discernment. But to those whose understanding has turned back from outward forms, who have gained the grace of a teacher and of their own self, there is no happiness more evident, more easily known, more close at hand than this. So it is said, 'directly known, in accord with duty', and the rest. Some, who think themselves learned, say that since the self has no form the understanding does not reach it, and so the standing in right knowledge is hard to accomplish. True, it is so for those who lack a teacher's lineage, who have not heard the Vedanta, whose understanding is utterly bound up with outer objects, who have done no labour in the right means of knowledge. But for those who are the opposite, it is rather the notion that the worldly objects of the duality of grasped and grasper are real that is exceedingly hard to accomplish, since no other thing is found apart from the consciousness that is the self; and that it is so and not otherwise we have said. The Lord too has said, 'what is night for all beings, in that the man of restraint is awake'. Therefore the very cessation of the understanding's notion of outer differences is the cause of resting in the self's own nature. The self is never, for anyone, at any time, unknown, or to be reached, or to be rejected or taken up; for if the self were unknown all undertakings for one's own ends would be in vain. Nor can it be supposed that the body and the rest, being insentient, exist for their own sake. Nor is happiness for the sake of happiness, or pain for the sake of pain. And all dealings have their end in the attaining of knowledge of the self. Therefore, just as no other means of knowledge is needed to mark off one's own body, so, the self being even more inward than that, no other means is needed for its knowing; so the standing in knowledge of the self is, for the discerning, well known. This is established. Even for those who hold knowledge to be formless and not directly perceived, it must be granted that, since the object is known only by the power of knowledge, knowledge is utterly evident, just like happiness and the rest. And there can be no wish to know it; for if knowledge were unknown, it would be sought to be known, like an object. As the knower wishes to reach with his knowledge an object such as a pot, so he would wish to reach knowledge itself by another knowledge. That is not so. Therefore knowledge is utterly evident, and the knower too, for the same reason, is evident. So no effort need be made for knowledge; the effort is only for the ceasing of the notion of self in the non-self. Therefore the standing in knowledge is easily accomplished. This is what is called the supreme consummation of knowledge. How it is to be carried out is told next.
Contemporary English rendering of the Sanskrit bhāṣya, pending scholar review.