Bhashya
अत्रैव एतस्मिन्नेव एकस्मिन्वस्तुनि ब्रह्मणि विरुद्धधर्मवत्त्व-माचक्षाणेन भगवता मम मोहः कृतः; तदाह- अत्रैवमा भगवान् पूजावान् अमूमुहत् मोहं कृतवान् ।कथं तेनविरुद्धधर्मवत्त्वमुक्तमित्युच्यते- पूर्वं विज्ञानघन एवेतिप्रतिज्ञाय, पुनः न प्रेत्य संज्ञास्तीति ; कथं विज्ञानघन एव ?कथं वा न प्रेत्य संज्ञास्तीति ? न हि उष्णः शीतश्च अग्निरे-वैको भवति; अतो मूढास्मि अत्र ।स होवाच याज्ञव-ल्क्यः- न वा अरे मैत्रेय्यहं मोहं ब्रवीमि- मोहनं वाक्यंन ब्रवीमीत्यर्थः ।ननु कथं विरुद्धधर्मत्वमवोचः- विज्ञान-घनं संज्ञाभावं च ? न मया इदम् एकस्मिन्धर्मिण्यभिहि-तम्; त्वय्यैव इदं विरुद्धधर्मत्वेन एकं वस्तु परिगृहीतं भ्रा-न्त्या; न तु मया उक्तम्; मया तु इदमुक्तम्- यस्तु अ-विद्याप्रत्युपस्थापितः कार्यकारणसम्बन्धी आत्मनः खिल्यभावः,तस्मिन्विद्यया नाशिते, तन्निमित्ता या विशेषसंज्ञा शरी-रादिसंबन्धिनी अन्यत्वदर्शनलक्षणा, सा कार्यकारणसंघातो-पाधौ प्रविलापिते नश्यति, हेत्वभावात्, उदकाद्याधारना-शादिव चन्द्रादिप्रतिबिम्बः तन्निमित्तश्च प्रकाशादिः; नपुनः परमार्थचन्द्रादित्यस्वरूपवत् असंसारिब्रह्मस्वरूपस्य वि-ज्ञानघनस्य नाशः; तत् विज्ञानघन इत्युक्तम्; स आत्माळापितम् आत्मैव संवृत्तम्- यत्र एवम् आत्मैवाभूत् , तत् तत्र केन ,करणेन कं घ्रातव्यं को जिघ्रेत्? तथा पश्येत्? विजानीयात्; सर्वत्र हि कारकसाध्या क्रिया; अतः कारकाभावेऽनुपपत्तिः क्रियायाः; क्रियाभावे च फलाभावः ।तस्मात् अविद्यायामेव सत्यां क्रियाकारकफलव्यवहारः, न ब्रह्मविदः- आत्मत्वादेव सर्वस्य, न आत्मव्यतिरेकेण कारकं क्रियाफलं वास्ति; न च अनात्मा सन् सर्वमात्मैव भवति कस्यचित्; तस्मात् अविद्ययैव अनात्मत्वं परिकल्पितम्; न तु परमार्थत आत्मव्यतिरेकेणास्ति किंचित्; तस्मात् परमार्थात्मैकत्वप्रत्यये क्रियाकारकफलप्रत्ययानुपपत्तिः ।अतः विरोधात् ब्रह्मविदः क्रियाणां तत्साधनानां च अत्यन्तमेव निवृत्तिः ।केन कमिति क्षेपार्थं वचनं प्रकारान्तरानुपपत्तिदर्शनार्थम्, केनचिदपि प्रकारेण क्रियाकरणादिकारकानुपपत्तेः- केनचित् कंचित् कश्चित् कथंचित् न जिघ्रेदेवैत्यर्थः ।यत्रापि अविद्यावस्थायाम् अन्यः अन्यं पश्यति, तत्रापि येनेदं सर्वं विजानाति, तं केन विजानीयात्- येन विजानाति, तस्य करणस्य, विज्ञेये विनियुक्तत्वात्; ज्ञातुश्च ज्ञेय एव हि जिज्ञासा, न आत्मनि; न च अग्नेरिव आत्मा आत्मनो विषयः; न च अविषये ज्ञातुः
In plain words
'Right here, in this one thing you're calling Brahman, you told me two things that can't both be true, sir, and now I'm lost' -- that's what Maitreyī says. And fair enough: first he said it's nothing but a solid mass of awareness, then he turned around and said there's no awareness left after death. How can both be true? Fire can't be hot and cold at the same time -- so no wonder she's confused. But Yājñavalkya answers, 'I'm not speaking in riddles, dear one' -- meaning, I never said anything confusing. 'But didn't you?' she might press -- 'a mass of consciousness, and yet no awareness -- isn't that exactly the contradiction?' 'No,' he says. 'I never pinned both of those onto one and the same thing. You did that yourself, by mistake. Here's what I actually meant: that whole sense of being a separate little 'lump' -- the one ignorance built for you out of cause and effect -- once knowledge destroys that, the specific awareness that came with it, the one tied to your body and everything that made you feel separate from other things, disappears too, simply because what was causing it is gone. It's exactly like a reflection: take away the water or whatever it was shining on, and the reflected moon vanishes, and so does the light on it. But the moon itself, the real one, is never touched -- and neither is Brahman, the mass of consciousness, ever destroyed. That's exactly why it's called a mass of consciousness. That very Self [something's missing or garbled in the text right here] has simply become the Self, and only the Self. And once everything really has become just the Self, tell me -- with what would you even smell something, or who would be left to smell it? Who would see, who would know? Because doing anything at all needs an agent, an instrument, a job to do -- take those away and action itself makes no sense, and without action there's no result either. So this whole business of doing and gaining -- agent, action, result -- only exists as long as ignorance does. Not for someone who knows Brahman: for that person everything simply is the Self, and there's nothing apart from the Self to act, or be acted on, or be gained. Nothing that isn't the Self ever actually turns into the Self for anyone -- so 'not being the Self' was never anything but ignorance's own invention. Really, apart from the Self, nothing exists at all. So once you truly see that the Self alone is real, the whole idea of doing something to get something simply falls apart. That's why, for someone who knows this, action and everything it depends on comes to a complete stop -- there's a flat contradiction otherwise. The words 'by what, what' aren't really a question -- they're there to shut the door on every other possibility, because there is no way, none at all, for any instrument or agent to function here: no one could smell anything, by anything, in any way. And notice -- even in ordinary experience, when ignorance has us seeing one thing as different from another, ask this: the one by which you know all of that -- by what would you know THAT? Because whatever tool you use to know something can only ever point outward, at an object; it was built for that job. And wanting to know is always about something else, never about yourself -- fire doesn't burn itself, and the Self isn't its own object either. And knowing needs an object...
Close to the Sanskrit
Right here, in this one single thing, Brahman, the venerable one, by describing it as possessing contradictory qualities, has caused me confusion; so she says: 'Right here the venerable, honorable sir has confused me, has caused confusion.' How is it said that he stated it as possessing contradictory qualities? Having first asserted 'it is a mass of consciousness alone', he then again [said] 'there is no awareness after death' -- how can it be a mass of consciousness alone, and how can there also be no awareness after death? For fire, being one, cannot be both hot and cold; therefore I am confused here. Yājñavalkya said: 'I am not, dear one, speaking delusion' -- the meaning being, 'I am not speaking a confusing statement.' [Objection:] But surely, how did you not state a contradiction -- a mass of consciousness, and yet the absence of awareness? [Reply:] This was not stated by me of one single substrate; it is you yourself who has grasped this, through error, as one thing possessing contradictory qualities; it was not said by me. What I actually said was this: that lump-condition of the Self, which is set up by nescience and bound up with cause and effect -- once that is destroyed by knowledge, the particular awareness caused by it, which pertains to the body and the like and consists in perceiving otherness, ceases when the limiting adjunct constituted by the aggregate of cause and effect is dissolved, because its cause is gone -- just as, from the loss of a support such as water, the reflection of the moon or sun disappears, and likewise light and the rest, which are dependent on such a support. But there is no destruction of the mass of consciousness, of Brahman's own real nature, free from transmigration, comparable to the real, unchanging nature of the moon and sun themselves; that is why it was called 'a mass of consciousness'. That Self [text uncertain here] has become the Self alone. Where the Self alone has thus become everything, then, by what instrument would one smell what, or who would smell? Likewise, who would see, who would know? For everywhere action is accomplished only through factors; hence, when factors are absent, action is impossible; and when action is absent, there is no result. Therefore, only while nescience is present is there the transactional world of action, agent, and result -- not for the knower of Brahman, since everything is nothing but the Self for him; apart from the Self, no agent, action, or result exists. Nor does something existing as not-Self ever become wholly the Self for anyone; therefore non-selfhood is a construction of nescience alone; but in ultimate reality nothing whatsoever exists apart from the Self. Therefore, given the cognition of the Self's sole reality, the cognition of action, agent, and result becomes impossible. Hence, because of this incompatibility, for the knower of Brahman there is the utter cessation of actions and their means. The phrase 'by what, what' is meant to dismiss [any alternative], to show the impossibility of any other manner, since by no manner whatsoever is any factor such as action or instrument possible -- meaning: by no one, in no way, would anyone smell anything at all. Even where, in the state of nescience, one thing perceives another as different, even there, as for that by which one knows all this -- by what could one know that? Because the instrument by which one knows is engaged only toward the object to be known; and for the knower, the desire to know is directed only at what is to be known, not at the Self; nor is the Self, like fire, an object of itself; and for the knower, in the absence of an object...