By devotion he comes to know Me truly, both how great I am with the differing extensions made by the limiting adjuncts, and who I am with all difference of adjunct shattered, the supreme Person, like space; he comes to know that Me truly, the non-dual, the single taste of pure consciousness, ageless, fearless, deathless. Then, having so known Me truly, he enters Me at once, right after the knowing. Here knowing and entering are not meant as two separate acts; 'having known, he enters right after' means that, since there is no further fruit, it is knowledge alone, for it was said 'know Me also as the field-knower'. It may be objected that this contradicts what was said, 'the supreme consummation of knowledge, by which he knows Me'. How is it a contradiction? Because, the moment knowledge of an object arises in the knower, he knows that object; so he does not need a standing in knowledge marked by the repetition of knowing; and so he does not know Me by knowledge but by the repetition of knowing, the standing in knowledge. This is no fault. When knowledge has the conditions of its arising and ripening and is free of any contrary notion, its terminating in the certainty of the experience of the self is what the word 'standing' expresses. The knowledge of the oneness of the field-knower and the supreme self, produced by the teaching of scripture and teacher together with the auxiliary cause, the purity of the understanding and the qualities of humility and the rest, accompanied by the giving up of all action which rests on the dispelling of the notion of the difference of agent and the other factors, its abiding in the form of the certainty of the experience of one's own self is what is called the supreme standing in knowledge. This same standing in knowledge has been called, in contrast to the three devotions of the afflicted and the rest, the supreme, the fourth devotion. By that supreme devotion he knows the Lord truly, and right after that the notion of difference between Lord and field-knower ceases without remainder. So the statement 'by devotion marked by the standing in knowledge he knows Me' is not contradicted. And here all the scripture that enjoins withdrawal, marked by Vedanta, history, Purana, and remembered scripture, and established by reasoning, becomes meaningful: 'having known, they rise up and live the life of mendicancy'; 'therefore they call renunciation the highest of these austerities'; 'renunciation alone surpassed'; renunciation being the laying down of action. 'Renouncing the Vedas, this world and the next'; 'give up both law and lawlessness'; and the texts shown here. It is not right that these texts should be meaningless, nor that they should be mere subsidiary praise, since they stand in their own section, and since liberation has for its ground the abiding in the changeless nature of the inmost self. For one who wishes to go to the eastern sea cannot share the road with one who wishes to go, in the opposite direction, to the western sea; and the standing in knowledge, which is the dwelling on the stream of cognition of the inmost self, is, like the going to the western sea, contradicted by being joined with action. The knowers of valid knowledge have settled that the opposition between them is as great as that between a mountain and a mustard seed. Therefore it is established that the standing in knowledge is to be carried out only by the renunciation of all action. The discipline of devotion which is the worship of the Lord by one's own action has for its fruit the gaining of consummation, the fitness for the standing in knowledge; that discipline of devotion to the Lord, which gives rise to the standing in knowledge that ends in the fruit of liberation, is now praised, in this concluding section, to make firm the settled meaning of the teaching.

By devotion of such a form, he knows truly how great I am, by quality and by glory, and who I am, by own form and by own nature. Having known Me truly, then, right after the knowledge of the truth, by that devotion he enters Me, comes into Me. He attains Me by the unsurpassed and limitless devotion that comes after the seeing of the truth of My own form, own nature, qualities, and glory. This is the meaning. Here, by 'then', indicated as the cause of the attaining, it is devotion itself that is spoken of; for by 'I can be attained by undivided devotion' it is devotion alone that is told to be the cause of the true entering. Thus the ripening has been told of the obligatory and occasional actions suited to caste and stage of life, when their fruit and the rest have been relinquished and they are carried out in the form of the worship of the supreme Person. Now the Lord says that of the desire-prompted actions too, when carried out in the very manner described, the ripening is the same.

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

Madhvacharya does not comment on this verse.