He who knows in truth, as it truly is, My birth, which has the form of māyā, and My action, the protection of the good and the rest, as divine, unworldly, sovereign, in the manner described: he, having cast off this body, does not come to rebirth, to a fresh arising; he comes to Me, he is freed, O Arjuna. This path to liberation is not one that has begun only now; rather, even before.

Thus, of Me, who am free of the birth that is the contact with the matter of the three qualities, the thing to be shunned, which is the root of karma; who am endowed with all the auspicious qualities, being the Lord of all, all-knowing, of true resolve, and the rest; whose birth and deeds, divine, not of matter, and not shared with others, have the deliverance of the good and the taking of refuge in Me for their single purpose; whoever knows that birth and that deed truly, he, having given up the present body, comes not again to birth but attains Me alone. By the true knowledge of My divine birth and deeds, his every sin that obstructs the taking of refuge in Me destroyed, in this very birth, taking refuge in Me in the manner described, having Me for his single love and his single thought, he attains Me alone. The Lord states this.

The statement of a separate release for the knower is meant to make known the rule that holds for all knowers; it was already said (3.20) that release does not come by that much alone. The Maha-kaurma says, 'he who, having known all that the Veda and the rest declare, ever worships Me, him alone do I bring to the path of My sight, and no other at all'. The course of the verse stated here is that one comes to no further birth only by knowing this, and the other sentences have no other course. By the qualifying phrase 'no other at all', and by the qualifier 'in truth', all knowledge is brought in; and where this is so, there is no conflict in the qualifier 'in truth'. And it is said in the Skanda, 'without omniscience a man, even the great Indra, is not able to know a single thing in truth; therefore let one seek to know in every field'.