Verse 53

⁴⁶Those whose knowing of themselves has been struck down by an ignorance with no beginning, and who are sick with the labour of the round of birth that is rooted in it, may reach you by coming near as chance brings them. You are the giver of release, our highest teacher. ⁴⁷This man, who does not know, and is bound by works of his own, wanting happiness works at what brings none. By serving him a man shakes that false way of thinking off. May he break open the knot that is the heart; he is our teacher. ⁴⁸By serving whom a man leaves off the stain that is his own darkness, as the weeping of Rudra leaves off its dross in fire, and comes into the colour that is his own: may that one, who does not wear away, be for us the highest Lord, the teacher of the teacher.

⁴⁹A ten-thousandth part of a fragment of whose favour to a man the other gods and teachers and people have no power to do, though they come together: to you, that Lord, I go for refuge. ⁵⁰As a man with no eyes is made the guide of a blind man, so one who does not know is made the teacher of people who do not know. But you, whose eye is the sun, who are the seeing of all who see, are chosen as teacher by us, who want to know our own way. ⁵¹One man points another to a way that is not true, and by it he comes into a darkness there is no crossing. But you are knowledge that does not wear away and does not fail, by which a man comes straight to the place that is his own.

⁵²You are the friend of every world, the lord it loves, its self, its teacher, its knowledge, the getting of what it wishes for. And still the world, blind in mind and tied to its desires, does not know you, who are there in the heart. ⁵³To you then, best of the gods, worthy to be chosen, the Lord, I go for refuge, so that I may be woken. Cut through the knots in my heart, Bhagavan, with words that are lamps to the meaning, and open out your own dwelling.