Bhashya
अत्र च संप्रदायविद् आख्यायिकां संप्रचक्षते- कश्चि-त्किल राजपुत्रः जातमात्र एव मातापितृभ्यामपविद्धः व्या-धगृहे संवर्धितः ; सः अमुष्य वंश्यतामजानन् व्याधजाति-प्रत्ययः व्याधजातिकर्माण्येवानुवर्तते, न राजास्मीति राज-जातिकर्माण्यनुवर्तते ; यदा पुनः कश्चित्परमकारुणिकः रा-जपुत्रस्य राजश्रीप्राप्तियोग्यतां जानन् अमुष्य पुत्रतां बो-धयति-'न त्वं व्याधः, अमुष्य राज्ञः पुत्रः; कथंचिद्व्याध-गृहमनुप्रविष्टः' इति-स एवं बोधितः त्यक्त्वा व्या-धजातिप्रत्ययकर्माणि पितृपैतामहीम् आत्मनः पदवी-मनुवर्तते- राजाहमस्मीति ।तथा किल अयं परस्मात् अ-ग्निविस्फुलिङ्गादिवत् तज्जातिरेव विभक्तः इह देहेन्द्रियादि-गहने प्रविष्टः असंसारी सन् देहेन्द्रियादिसंसारधर्ममनुव-र्तते- देहेन्द्रियसंघातोऽस्मि कृशः स्थूलः सुखी दुःखीति-परमात्मतामजानन्नात्मनः; न त्वम् एतदात्मकः परमेवब्रह्मासि असंसारी- इति प्रतिबोधित आचार्येण, हित्वाएषणात्रयानुवृत्तिं ब्रह्मैवास्मीति प्रतिपद्यते ।अत्र राजपु-त्रस्य राजप्रत्ययवत् ब्रह्मप्रत्ययो दृढी भवति- विस्फुलिङ्ग-वदेव त्वं परस्माद्ब्रह्मणो भ्रष्ट इत्युक्ते, विस्फुलिङ्गस्य प्राग-ग्नेर्भ्रंशात् अग्न्येकत्वदर्शनात् ।तस्मात् एकत्वप्रत्ययदार्ढ्यायसुवर्णमणिलोहाग्निविस्फुलिङ्गदृष्टान्ताः, न उत्पत्त्यादिभेदप्र-तिपादनपराः ।सैन्धवघनवत् प्रज्ञैयेकरसनैरन्तर्यावधार-णात् 'एकधैवानुद्रष्टव्यम्' इति च- यदि च ब्रह्मणःचित्रपटवत् वृक्षसमुद्रादिवच्च उत्पत्त्याद्यनेकधर्मविचित्रताविजिग्राहयिषिता, एकरसं सैन्धवघनवदनन्तरमबाह्यम्-इतिनोपसमहरिष्यत्, 'एकधैवानुद्रष्टव्यम्' इति च न प्रायो-क्ष्यत- 'य इह नानेव पश्यति' इति निन्दावचनं च ।तस्मात् एकरूपैकत्वप्रत्ययदार्ढ्यायैव सर्ववेदान्तेषु उत्पत्तिस्थितिलयादिकल्पना, न तत्प्रत्ययकरणाय ॥
In plain words
Here the tradition carries a story. A prince, torn from his parents the moment he was born, grows up in a hunter's house. He has no idea he belongs to a royal line — he takes himself for a hunter, and lives like one, never once thinking, 'I am a king.' Then someone deeply compassionate, seeing what he's actually fit for, tells him the truth: 'You are not a hunter. You are the son of that king. Somehow you wandered into a hunter's home.' The moment he hears it, he drops the hunter's ways and steps into the place that was always his by birth — 'I am the king.' You are that prince. You broke off from the Supreme the way a spark breaks off from fire, and you wandered into this thicket of body and senses. Nothing about you actually transmigrates, yet you've been living as if you do — 'I am this body, these senses, I am thin, I am heavy, I am happy, I am in pain' — because you never knew the Self you already are. Then the teacher wakes you: 'You are not this. You alone are Brahman, beyond all transmigration.' Let go of chasing what you crave, and you find yourself simply saying, 'I am Brahman.' Just as the prince's sense of himself as king becomes unshakeable once he hears it, your sense of being Brahman becomes unshakeable too — the moment you're told 'you fell from Brahman like a spark,' you see the spark was one with the fire even before it fell. That's why the images of gold and jewel, iron and spark, are there: to make the truth of oneness stick, not to prove that something real came into being and split apart. Because scripture holds one essence through and through, like a block of salt, and says 'see it as one alone' — if it had actually meant to paint many separate qualities onto Brahman, the way a canvas holds many colors or the world holds trees and oceans, it would never have said 'no inside, no outside, one taste throughout,' never said 'see it as one alone,' and never scolded, 'he who sees many here.' So every talk of creation, sustaining, and dissolution in the Vedanta is only there to fix the single truth in you — not to hand you a multiplied world.
Close to the Sanskrit
And here the knowers of the tradition relate a story: A certain king's son, cast off by his mother and father as soon as he was born, was raised in a hunter's house. Not knowing his belonging to that lineage, taking himself to be of the hunter's caste, he follows only the acts belonging to the hunter caste; he does not follow the acts belonging to the royal caste, thinking 'I am a king.' But when a certain extremely compassionate person, knowing his fitness for attaining royal fortune, informs him of his sonship — 'You are not a hunter; you are the son of that king; somehow you entered a hunter's house' — then he, thus informed, having abandoned the notions and acts belonging to the hunter caste, follows the position that is his own by father and grandfather: 'I am a king.' Likewise, indeed, this one, separated from the Supreme like a spark from fire, entered here into the dense thicket of body and senses; though not subject to transmigration, he follows the transmigratory nature of body and senses — 'I am the aggregate of body and senses, I am thin, I am stout, I am happy, I am unhappy' — not knowing the Supreme Self as his own self. When, by the teacher, he is awakened thus: 'You are not this; you alone are the supreme Brahman, free from transmigration' — then, having abandoned the pursuit of the three desires, he comes to realize 'I am Brahman alone.' Here, as the notion 'king' becomes firm for the king's son, so the notion 'Brahman' becomes firm — just as, when it is said 'You have fallen from the Supreme Brahman, exactly like a spark,' the oneness with fire is seen from the spark's prior separation from the fire. Therefore the illustrations of gold, jewel, iron, and fire-and-spark are for the firming of the notion of oneness, not intent on establishing difference by origination and the like. Because, from the ascertainment through wisdom of the unbroken continuity of one essence, like a lump of rock-salt, and from 'it should be seen only as one' — if a manifold diversity of properties such as origination were meant to be established of Brahman, like a painted canvas or like trees and the ocean, then it would not have concluded 'one-essenced, like a lump of salt, without an interior or an exterior,' nor would it have used 'it should be seen only as one,' nor the reproachful statement 'he who sees as if manifold here.' Therefore, in all the Vedanta texts, the positing of origination, subsistence, dissolution and the like is solely for the firming of the notion of oneness of one form, not for producing the notion of that [multiplicity].