Bhashya
आत्मेत्येवोपासीत; तदेव एतस्मिन् सर्वस्मिन् पदनीयम्आत्मतत्त्वम्, यस्मात् प्रेयः पुत्रादेः—इत्युपन्यस्तस्य वाक्यस्यव्याख्यानविषये संबन्धप्रयोजने अभिहिते— ‘तदात्मान-मेवावेदहं ब्रह्मास्मीति तस्मात्तत्सर्वमभवत्’ इति; एवं प्रत्य-गात्मा ब्रह्मविद्याया विषय इत्येतत् उपन्यस्तम् ।अविद्या-याश्च विषयः— ‘अन्योऽसावन्योऽहमस्मीति न स वेद’इत्यारभ्य चातुर्वर्ण्यप्रविभागादिनिमित्तपाङ्क्तकर्मसाध्यसाधन-लक्षणः बीजाङ्कुरवत् व्याकृताव्याकृतस्वभावः नामरूपकर्मा-त्मकः संसारः ‘त्रयं वा इदं नाम रूपं कर्म’ इत्युपसंहृतःशास्त्रीय उत्कर्षलक्षणो ब्रह्मलोकान्तः अधोभावश्च स्थावरा-न्तोऽशास्त्रीयः, पूर्वमेव प्रदर्शितः—‘द्वया ह’ इत्यादिना ।एतस्मादविद्याविषयाद्विरक्तस्य प्रत्यगात्मविषयब्रह्मविद्यायाम्अधिकारः कथं नाम स्यादिति—तृतीयेऽध्याये उपसंहृतःसमस्तोऽविद्याविषयः ।चतुर्थे तु ब्रह्मविद्याविषयं प्रत्यगा-त्मानम् ‘ब्रह्म ते ब्रवाणि’ इति ‘ब्रह्म ज्ञापयिष्यामि’ इति चप्रस्तुत्य, तत् ब्रह्म एकम् अद्वयं सर्वविशेषशून्यं क्रियाकार-कफलस्वभावसत्यशब्दवाच्याशेषभूतधर्मप्रतिषेधद्वारेण ‘नेति नेति’ इति ज्ञापितम् ।अस्या ब्रह्मविद्याया अङ्गत्वेन संन्यासो विधित्सितः, जायापुत्रवित्तादिलक्षणं पाङ्क्तं कर्म अविद्याविषयं यस्मात् न आत्मप्राप्तिसाधनम्; अन्यसाधनं हि अन्यस्मै फलसाधनाय प्रयुज्यमानं प्रतिकूलं भवति; न हि बुभुक्षापिपासानिवृत्त्यर्थं धावनं गमनं वा साधनम्; मनुष्यलोकपितृलोकदेवलोकसाधनत्वेन हि पुत्रादिसाधनानि श्रुतानि, न आत्मप्राप्तिसाधनत्वेन, विशेषितत्वाच्च; न च ब्रह्मविदो विहितानि, काम्यत्वश्रवणात्—‘एतावान्वै कामः’ इति, ब्रह्मविदश्च आप्तकामत्वात् आप्तकामस्य कामानुपपत्तेः, ‘येषां नोऽयमात्मायं लोकः’ इति च श्रुतेः ।केचित्तु ब्रह्मविदोऽप्येषणासंबन्धं वर्णयन्ति; तैर्बृहदारण्यकं न श्रुतम्; पुत्राद्येषणानामविद्वद्विषयत्वम्, विद्याविषये च—‘येषां नोऽयमात्मायं लोकः’ इत्यतः ‘किं प्रजया करिष्यामः’ इति—एष विभागः तैर्न श्रुतः श्रुत्या कृतः; सर्वक्रियाकारकफलोपमर्दस्वरूपायां च विद्यायां सत्याम्, सह कार्येण अविद्याया अनुपपत्तिलक्षणश्च विरोधः तैर्न विज्ञातः; व्यासवाक्यं च तैर्न श्रुतम् ।कर्मविद्यास्वरूपयोः विद्याविद्यात्मकयोः प्रतिकूलवर्तनं विरोधः ।‘यदिदं वेदवचनं कुरु कर्म त्यजेति च ।कां गतिं विद्यया यान्ति कां च गच्छन्ति कर्मणा ॥एतद्वैश्रोतुमिच्छामि तद्भवान्प्रब्रवीतु मे ।एतावन्योन्यवैरूप्ये वर्तेतेप्रतिकूलतः' इत्येवं पृष्टस्य प्रतिवचनेन— 'कर्मणाबध्यते जन्तुर्विद्यया च विमुच्यते ।तस्मात्कर्म न कुर्वन्तियतयः पारदर्शिनः' इत्येवमादि— विरोधः प्रदर्शितः ।तस्मात् न साधनान्तरसहिता ब्रह्मविद्या पुरुषार्थसाधनम्,सर्वविरोधात्, साधननिरपेक्षैव पुरुषार्थसाधनम्— इतिपारिव्राज्यं सर्वसाधनसंन्यासळक्षणम् अङ्गत्वेन विधित्स्यते;एतावदेवामृतत्वसाधनमित्यवधारणात्, षष्ठसमाप्तौ, लिङ्गा-च्च— कर्मी सन्याज्ञवल्क्यः प्रवव्राजेति ।मैत्रेय्यै चकर्मसाधनरहितायै साधनत्वेनामृतत्वस्य ब्रह्मविद्योपदेशात्,वित्तनिन्दावचनाच्च ; यदि हि अमृतत्वसाधनं कर्म स्यात्,वित्तसाध्यं पाङ्क्तं कर्मेति— तन्निन्दावचनमनिष्टं स्यात्;यदि तु परितित्याजयिषितं कर्म, ततो युक्ता तत्साधन-निन्दा ।कर्माधिकारनिमित्तवर्णाश्रमादिप्रत्ययोपमर्दाच्च—'ब्रह्म तं परादात्' 'क्षत्रं तं परादात्' इत्यादिः; न हिब्रह्मक्षत्राद्यात्मप्रत्ययोपमर्दे, ब्राह्मणेनेदं कर्तव्यं क्षत्रियेणेदंकर्तव्यमिति विषयाभावात् आत्मानं लभते विधिः; यस्यैवपुरुषस्य उपमर्दितः प्रत्ययः ब्रह्मक्षत्राद्यात्मविषयः, तस्य तत्प्र-त्ययसंन्यासात् तत्कार्याणां कर्मणां कर्मसाधनानां च अर्थ-प्राप्तश्च संन्यासः ।तस्मात् आत्मज्ञानाङ्गत्वेन संन्यासविधि-त्स्यैव आख्यायिकेयमारभ्यते ॥
In plain words
The teaching to meditate on nothing but the Self was laid down because the Self is dearer than a son, dearer than anything — and its reality is what this entire universe is quietly pointing toward, if you trace it far enough. Once that connection had been drawn, scripture said: "It knew only itself — 'I am Brahman' — and so it became everything." That is how the inner Self came to be the whole subject of this teaching. Ignorance, on the other hand, is the world of "he is one thing, I am another" — the whole apparatus of caste, ritual, cause and effect, name and form and action, rising toward Brahmā's world for those who live rightly, falling toward the stillness of plant-life for those who do not, exactly as an earlier passage already showed. But then a real question arises: how could someone weary of all that ignorance actually qualify for knowledge of the inner Self? Chapter three closed the book on ignorance. Chapter four opened onto the Self itself — "let me tell you of Brahman," Yājñavalkya says — and unfolded it the only way it can be unfolded: not by describing what it is, but by stripping away everything it is not, action, agent, result, every so-called "real" thing a word can point to — "not this, not this." Renunciation now enters as the support this knowledge needs, because none of the ordinary business of life — wife, son, wealth, ritual — can actually get you to the Self. A tool built for one job doesn't do a different one: running won't satisfy your hunger, however far you run. Scripture is honest about this — sons and rites like them lead to this world, the ancestors' world, the gods' world, never to the Self, and they were never meant to. They aren't even prescribed for someone who already knows the Self, because they exist to satisfy desire, and a person who has everything has nothing left to desire. Some people miss this entirely and claim even a knower of Brahman still wants things — but that shows they haven't really read this Upanishad. Scripture itself draws the line: "those for whom this Self is the only world" immediately asks, "then what would we even do with children?" That distinction is right there, and they've walked past it — along with the plain contradiction in what they're proposing, since real knowledge undoes exactly the action, agent, and result their ritual life depends on, and with the words of Vyāsa too, who put the conflict in verse: someone once asked, "Scripture tells us both to act and to renounce action — which path actually leads where? I want a straight answer." And he got one: "Action binds you. Knowledge sets you free. That is why anyone who truly sees does not act." So knowledge propped up by ritual can never be the whole path — the two pull in opposite directions. Knowledge, standing on nothing but itself, is the whole path. And that is exactly why wandering renunciation, letting go of every ritual means, gets enjoined here — not as the goal, but as its support, because a later passage says plainly, "this much is all immortality needs," and because Yājñavalkya himself, a man who had lived by ritual his whole life, still walked away from it in the end. And it fits Maitreyī too: she had no wealth for rites, and yet Yājñavalkya taught her the knowledge of Brahman as the way to immortality — and he ran down wealth while doing it. If ritual wealth could actually buy immortality, running it down would make no sense. It only makes sense if ritual action is something to be let go of entirely. And there's a deeper reason still: once you see that "brahmin" and "warrior" are just notions laid over the Self, those identities drop away — "brahminhood abandons him," the text says, and the same for the rest. Rules like "a brahmin must do this, a warrior must do that" have nowhere left to land once there's no one identified as brahmin or warrior to obey them. Let go of that identity, and the rites built on it, and the wealth those rites needed, all fall away with it, simply as a matter of course. This — teaching renunciation as the support for knowing the Self — is exactly why this story is about to begin.
Close to the Sanskrit
"One should meditate upon it only as the Self" — that very reality of the Self is to be traced within this entire universe, since it is dearer than a son and the like; this was the sentence earlier introduced. When, in expounding it, its connection and purpose had been stated — "it knew only itself: 'I am Brahman'; therefore it became all this" — thus [it was said]; in this way it was established that the inner Self is the subject-matter of the knowledge of Brahman. And the subject-matter of ignorance is this: beginning with "[thinking] 'he is other, and I am other' — thus he does not know," [there follows] the transmigratory world, characterized by the results and means of the pāṅkta rites occasioned by the division into castes and the like, having a nature now manifest, now unmanifest, like seed and sprout, consisting of name, form, and action — summed up as "this, indeed, is a triad: name, form, action." [Its two courses are] the scripturally-ordained ascent, characterized by elevation, ending in the world of Brahmā, and the descent, ending in the immobile creation, which is not scripturally ordained — as was already shown earlier, in the passage beginning "there are two, indeed," and so on. How indeed could there be, for one dispassionate toward this domain of ignorance, entitlement to the knowledge of Brahman whose subject is the inner Self? With this question in view: the entire domain of ignorance has been summed up in the third chapter. But in the fourth, having introduced the inner Self, the subject-matter of the knowledge of Brahman, with the words "I shall tell you of Brahman" and "I shall make Brahman known," that Brahman — one, non-dual, void of all particular attributes — was made known as "not this, not this," by way of negating every existent property expressible in terms of action, the factors of action, result, essential nature, and reality. As a limb of this knowledge of Brahman, renunciation is intended to be enjoined, because ritual action marked by wife, son, wealth, and the like — the pāṅkta rite, which belongs to the domain of ignorance — is not a means to attaining the Self. For a means employed toward a result other than its own proves unsuitable: running or walking, for instance, is not a means for the cessation of hunger and thirst. For the means beginning with a son are declared in scripture as means to the human world, the world of the fathers, and the world of the gods — not as means to attaining the Self, since their purpose is specifically stated; nor are they enjoined for the knower of Brahman, because scripture speaks of their dependence on desire — as in "this indeed is the sum of desire" — and because the knower of Brahman, having attained all desires, can have no further desire, desire being impossible for one whose desires are already fulfilled; and because of the scriptural statement, "those for whom this Self, this very world, [suffices]." But some maintain that even a knower of Brahman retains a connection with worldly craving; by them the Bṛhadāraṇyaka has not been properly studied — they miss that cravings beginning with a son pertain only to the non-knower; and in the section treating of knowledge, following "those for whom this Self, this world, [suffices]" comes "what then should we do with progeny?" — this distinction, drawn by scripture itself, they have not grasped. And, given that Knowledge — whose very nature is the destruction of all action, its factors, and result — is present, the contradiction consisting in the impossibility of ignorance's effects coexisting with it has not been understood by them; nor have they heeded the statement of Vyāsa. The contradiction is this: the mutually opposed functioning of the natures of ritual action and knowledge, which are respectively of the nature of ignorance and of knowledge. [As the verse says:] "This scriptural word — 'perform action' and 'abandon it' — to what destination do people go by knowledge, and to what do they go by action? I wish indeed to hear this; may you, sir, tell it to me. These two stand opposed to each other, in mutual contrariety." By the answer given to him who thus asked — "by action a creature is bound, and by knowledge it is freed; therefore seers who have seen the truth do not perform action" — and so on, the contradiction has been shown. Therefore the knowledge of Brahman combined with other means is not a means to the goal of human life, because of this thoroughgoing contradiction; knowledge independent of any other means alone is the means to the goal of human life. Hence wandering renunciation, characterized by the relinquishment of all ritual means, is intended to be enjoined as a limb, because of the definitive statement at the conclusion of the sixth chapter, "this much alone is the means to immortality," and because of the textual indication — "Yājñavalkya, though a man of ritual action, went forth" — thus. And because knowledge of Brahman as the means to immortality was taught to Maitreyī, who was without the means for ritual action, and because of the statement disparaging wealth — for if ritual action, the pāṅkta rite accomplishable by wealth, were the means to immortality, that disparaging statement would be inappropriate; but if action is what is meant to be wholly given up, then the disparagement of its means is fitting. And because the notion of caste, life-stage, and the like — the very basis of entitlement to ritual action — is destroyed, [as the text says] "brahminhood will abandon him," "kshatra-hood will abandon him," and so on; for indeed, once the notion of brahminhood, kshatra-hood, and the rest as belonging to the Self has been destroyed, an injunction such as "this is to be done by a brahmin," "this by a kshatriya," finds no object of its own, for want of any such object. For that very person whose notion — having brahminhood, kshatra-hood, and the like as its object with reference to the Self — has been destroyed, for him, from the renunciation of that notion, the renunciation of the actions arising from it and of the means to those actions follows as a natural consequence. Therefore this narrative is begun precisely with the intention of enjoining renunciation as a limb of Self-knowledge.