With a deep study of the Reality, the seeker in all his various personal identities, thereafter comes to live in unison with that understanding of the Divinity. His intellect gets, as it were, absorbed in That Knowledge and his mind cannot but sing the song of Godliness through everyone of its emotions. He becomes ever intent upon the Infinite Bliss which he has come to recognise as the essence in him. to such an individual the very Goal is nothing but the Self, which he has understood as illimitable and unlimited.

An individual who has thus educated himself upon the World-of-Truth within himself, shall thereafter, have no reason or chance to get caught up again in this world of likes and dislikes. This is the result of full PARTICIPATION in the studies. The next stage is to live up to what is understood from the studies; the active INVOLVEMENT in spiritual life. Then comes complete COMMITMENT.

How can we say that the ego will not rise again in such a man’s bosom? The reason is indicated here, when Krishna qualifies such men as “THOSE WHOSE IMPURITIES HAVE BEEN SHAKEN OFF BY KNOWLEDGE.” The impurities mentioned here are the vasanas which are the very materials with which the ego is conjured up. These vasanas together constitute what we philosophically call: “the ignorance of Spiritual Divinity.” The antidote for ignorance is Knowledge. Thus, when, with the rise of the Knowledge of Spiritual Bliss, the dreary darkness of ignorance ends, the ego too comes to a total extinction from which it cannot re-start its career. Without a cause no effect is ever possible. In short, in this stanza, we are meeting the most optimistic philosophy in the world, declaring courageously that, Self-Realisation is the final experience in the pilgrimage of evolution, and that, in it, the evolver in us shall come to fulfil himself. God-realisation is the last stage of growth, and thereafter, to be the ‘Supreme’ is the goal of all evolutionary struggles, to achieve which, the ego, in its self-evolution, roamed about so long in the field of its own self-created world-of-finitude and imperfections!

HOW DO THOSE WISE MEN, WHOSE IGNORANCE OF THE SELF HAS BEEN REMOVED BY KNOWLEDGE, SEE TRUTH? — IT IS SAID:

Tat-buddhayah, those who have their intellect absorbed in That, [Here Ast. reads ‘tasmin brahmani, in that Brahman’.-Tr.] in the supreme Knowledge which has been revealed; tat-atmanah, whose Self is That, who have That (tat) supreme Brahman Itself as their Self (atma); tat-nisthah, who are steadfast in That-nistha is intentness, exclusive devotion; they are called tat-nisthah who become steadfast only in Brahman by renouncing all actions; and tat-parayanah, who have That as their supreme (para) Goal (ayana), who have That alone as their supreme Resort, i.e. who are devoted only to the Self; those who have got their ignorance destroyed by Knowledge-those who are of this kind-, they gacchanti, attain; apunaravrttim, the state of non-returning, non-association again with a body; jnana-nirdhuta-kalmasah, their dirt having been removed, destroyed, by Knowledge. Those whose dirt (kalmasa), the defect in the form of sin etc., which are the cause of transmigration, have been removed, destryed (nirdhuta), by the aforesaid Knowledge (jnana) are jnana-nirdhuta-kalmasah, i.e. the monks. How do those learned ones, whose ignorance regarding the Self has been destroyed by Knowledge, look upon Reality? That is being stated: