What is night for all beings, the night that, being of the nature of darkness, makes all things undiscernible: this is the supreme reality, the object of one of settled insight. As what is mere day for the creatures of the night is night for others, so the supreme reality is like night for the night-faring ignorant, all beings, since it lies beyond the range of those whose understanding is not turned to it. In that night, marked as the supreme reality, the man of restraint, the self-controlled yogin whose senses are conquered, is awake, having woken from the sleep of ignorance. And that in which beings are awake, the night marked as ignorance, whose nature is the division of grasper and grasped, in which all beings, asleep as it were, are said to be awake, like dreamers asleep: that is night for the sage who sees the supreme reality, since it is of the nature of ignorance. Therefore actions are enjoined only in the state of ignorance, not in the state of knowledge. When knowledge is present, ignorance comes to destruction, like the dark of night when the sun has risen. Before the arising of knowledge, ignorance, grasped as though it were a means of knowledge, taking the form of the division of action, doer and fruit, becomes the cause of all action; for one who does not grasp it as a means of knowledge it cannot be the cause of action. It is when the doer thinks 'an action enjoined by the Veda, which is a means of knowledge, is to be done by me' that he engages in action, not when he thinks 'all this is mere ignorance, like night'. For one who has the knowledge that all this realm of distinction is mere ignorance, like night, for that knower of the Self the authority is for the renunciation of all action alone, not for engagement. And so He will show, with 'their understanding fixed on That, their self That' and the rest, that the knower's authority is for steadfastness in knowledge alone. Now, in the absence of a prompting means of knowledge, engagement would be untenable. This is no objection: because the knowledge of the Self has the Self for its object. The Self does not depend on a prompting means of knowledge for its own Self, since it is the very Self; and all the means of knowledge end in it, for their being means of knowledge ends there. Once the true nature of the Self is reached, no further dealing with means of knowledge and objects of knowledge is possible: the final means of knowledge sets aside the Self's status as a knower, and in setting it aside it ceases itself to be a means of knowledge, like the means of knowledge of the dream-state on waking. And in the world too, once a thing is reached, the means of knowledge is not seen to be a cause of further engagement. Therefore it is established that for the knower of the Self there is no authority for action. That liberation is gained by the knower, the ascetic of settled insight who has given up longing, and not by the non-renouncer who desires desires, He sets out to teach by an illustration.

The understanding that bears on the self is, for all beings, night, unlighting as night is. In that understanding bearing on the self, the man of restrained senses, of serene mind, is awake; that is, he abides beholding the self. And the understanding bearing on sound and the other objects, in which all beings are awake, are wakeful, that understanding bearing on sound and the rest is, for the sage who sees the self, night, unlighting.

Having gathered the stated mark into a single point, Krishna speaks with 'what is night'. What is night for all beings, marked by the own-form of the supreme Lord, that in which, as though asleep, they know nothing at all, in that the man of knowledge, with his senses joined, is awake, that is, he sees the supreme Self rightly, by direct vision. And that, marked by the sense-objects, in which beings are awake, in that, as in night, he sleeps, that is, for the most part he knows nothing. His activity of moving about and the rest is like that of a man intoxicated, as two verses of the Bhagavata declare (3.28.37-38; cf. 11.13.37). 'Muni' means one joined with reflection. Krishna then states the means of his seeing.