Know that knowledge, the rule by which it is gained. Approaching the teachers, by prostration, the prostration being a bowing low, a deep salutation; by questioning, asking 'how is there bondage? how is there liberation? what is knowledge? what is ignorance?' and the like; and by service, the doing of service to the teacher and so on: by these the teachers, won over by your humility, will teach you, will tell you, that knowledge of the character described, the knowers will. Of those who have knowledge, some have the habit of seeing the truth as it is, others not; that is why He specifies 'the seers of the truth'. The knowledge taught by those who see rightly is effective, not any other: such is the Blessed Lord's view. This being so, this statement too is fit.

That knowledge regarding the self, which was taught by Me from 'but know that to be indestructible' down to 'this has been declared to you', you, abiding in the action I have told, must, in due time according to its ripening, learn in a clear form from the knowers, by prostration, repeated questioning, and service. The knowers, who have had the direct realisation of the self's own nature, served by prostration and the rest, marking the bent of your mind as you ask all around in the wish to know, will teach you the knowledge. The Lord states the mark of the direct realisation that regards the truth of the self.

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

Even now Arjuna is a man of knowledge; yet his delusion is due to an overpowering. The means, however, has been stated.