The works of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya

Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadbhāṣyam

Avatarika

Avatarika

प्राप्ता ; यावत् यावत् पुण्योत्कर्षः तावत् तावत् फलोत्कर्ष-प्राप्तिः ; तस्मात् उत्तमेन पुण्योत्कर्षेण मोक्षो भविष्यतीत्य-शङ्का स्यात् ; सा निवर्तयितव्या ।ज्ञानसहितस्य च प्रकृ-ष्टस्य कर्मण एतावती गतिः, व्याकृतनामरूपास्पदत्वात्कर्मणः तत्फलस्य च ; न तु अकार्ये नित्ये अव्याकृतधर्मिणिअनामरूपात्मके क्रियाकारकफलस्वभाववर्जिते कर्मणो व्या-पारोऽस्ति ; यत्र च व्यापारः स संसार एव इत्यस्यार्थस्यप्रदर्शनाय ब्राह्मणमारभ्यते ॥

In plain words

...its attainability is established. Match the increase to the effort: more merit, more fruit — always in that same proportion. So a worry might arise: couldn't the very highest degree of merit finally deliver liberation? That worry needs to be laid to rest. Even the finest action, joined with knowledge, only ever reaches this far, because both the action and its result live within the world of name and form. But there is no room for action to operate in what is uncaused, eternal, undifferentiated, beyond name and form, free of every trace of doing, doer, and done. And wherever action operates at all, that is simply the wheel of birth and death turning again. To show exactly this, the next dialogue now begins.

Close to the Sanskrit

[Its attainability] is established. To whatever extent there is an increase of merit, to that extent there is an attainment of an increase of the fruit. Therefore the misgiving might arise that liberation would come about through the highest increase of merit — that misgiving is to be dispelled. For of action combined with knowledge, even of the excellent kind, this much only is the scope, because both action and its fruit have their locus in differentiated name-and-form; but there is no operation of action in what is not an effect, eternal, of undifferentiated nature, without name-and-form as its essence, devoid of the nature of action, agent-and-instrument, and result. And where there is such operation, that itself is transmigration — to demonstrate the purport of this point, the brahmana section is now begun.