In plain words
So Long as Ahaṅkāra and Possessiveness Remain, He Cannot Renounce Every Tie
Ādi Śaṅkara and Maṇḍana Miśra held a debate on Vedānta. A judge was needed to decide which of them would win and which would lose. Who would decide? Śaṅkara told Maṇḍana Miśra, ‘Let your wife, Ubhaya Bhāratī, be the judge.’ Do you see Śaṅkara's decision! Though Ubhaya Bhāratī was Maṇḍana Miśra's wife, he appointed none other than her as judge. Why? Because hers was a Buddhi free of all difference. She had no divided view of ‘mine’ and ‘yours’. She knew: though he was her husband, ‘Ekaṃ sat viprāḥ bahudhā vadanti.’ What is, is the one Satya alone. Ubhaya Bhāratī had recognised that very Satya and put her trust in it. ‘So let us keep her as the judge,’ said Śaṅkara. The two of them argued. In the end Maṇḍana Miśra lost the debate. Without the least hesitation, without the least fear, fearlessly, Ubhaya Bhāratī declared this truth: ‘Maṇḍana Miśra has lost.’ Immediately after, to uphold Satya, to uphold his word, Maṇḍana Miśra took sannyāsa. Ubhaya Bhāratī, his other half, took sannyāsa too. All that is of Prakṛti on one side, the supreme principle on the other. This is pravṛtti, that is nivṛtti. Ubhaya Bhāratī showed that the bond between pravṛtti and nivṛtti is one in which neither can be without the other. In both she went on recognising, like a shadow, reaction, reflection, resound. The very moment her husband and she took up the order of sannyāsa, Ubhaya Bhāratī thought, ‘I am separate, he is separate,’ and built an āśrama, for herself. That husband and wife, the two of them, went quite separate ways. Ubhaya Bhāratī took only women into her āśrama and was giving them teaching on the Ātma. One day, before dawn, she was going with some of the women to bathe in the Gaṅgā.