Bhashya
एवं विक्रोशतः तस्य यथाभिनहनं यथा बन्धनं प्रमुच्यमुक्त्वा कारुणिकः कश्चित् एतां दिशमुत्तरतः गन्धाराःएतां दिशं व्रज—इति प्रब्रूयात् ।स एवं कारुणिकेन बन्ध-नान्मोक्षितः ग्रामात् ग्रामान्तरं पृच्छन् पण्डितः उपदेश-वान् मेधावी परोपदिष्टग्रामप्रवेशमार्गावधारणसमर्थः मनगन्धारानेवोपसंपद्येत ।नेतरो मूढमतिः देशान्तरदर्शनतृड्वा ।यथा अयं दृष्टान्तः वर्णितः—स्वविषयेभ्यो गन्धारेभ्यः पुरुषःतस्करैरभिनद्धाक्षः अविवेकः दिङ्मूढः अशनायापिपासा-दिमान् व्याघ्रतस्कराद्यनेकभयानर्थव्रातयुतमरण्यं प्रवेशितःदुःखार्तः विक्रोशन् बन्धनेभ्यो मुमुक्षुस्तिष्ठति, स कथंचि-देव कारुणिकेन केनचिन्मोक्षितः स्वदेशान्गन्धारानेवापन्नःनिर्वृतः सुख्यभूत्— एवमेव सतः जगदात्मस्वरूपात्तेजोब-न्नादिमयं देहारण्यं वातपित्तकफरुधिरमेदोमांसास्थिमज्जाशु-क्रकृमिमूत्रपुरीषवत् शीतोष्णाद्यनेकदन्द्वदुःखवच्च इदं मोह-पटाभिनद्धाक्षः भार्यापुत्रमित्रपशुबन्ध्वादिवृष्टादृष्टानेकविषय-तृष्णापाशितः पुण्यापुण्यादितस्करैः प्रवेशितः— अहममुष्यपुत्रः, ममैते बान्धवाः, सुख्यहं दुःखी मूढः पण्डितो धार्मिकोबन्धुमान् जातः मृतो जीर्णः पापी, पुत्रो मे मृतः, धनं मेनष्टम्, हा हतोऽस्मि, कथं जीविष्यामि, का मे गतिः, किंपतिते अस्मिञ्शरीरान्तरमारब्धव्यम् ।उत्पन्ने च ज्ञानेयावज्जीवं विहितानि प्रतिषिद्धानि वा कर्माणि करोत्येवेतितत्फलोपभोगार्थं च अवश्यं शरीरान्तरमारब्धव्यम् , ततश्चकर्माणि ततः शरीरान्तरम् इति ज्ञानानर्थक्यम् , कर्मणांफलवत्त्वात् ।अथ ज्ञानवतः क्षीयन्ते कर्माणि, तदाज्ञानप्राप्तिसमकालमेव ज्ञानस्य सत्संपत्तिहेतुत्वान्मोक्षः स्या-दिति शरीरपातः स्यात् ।तथा च आचार्याभावःइति आचार्यवान्पुरुषो वेद इत्यनुपपत्तिः ।ज्ञानान्मो-क्षाभावप्रसङ्गश्च देशान्तरप्राप्त्युपायज्ञानवदनैकान्तिकफलत्वंवा ज्ञानस्य ।न, कर्मणां प्रवृत्ताप्रवृत्तफलवत्त्वविशेषो-पपत्तेः ।यदुक्तम् अप्रवृत्तफलानां कर्मणां ध्रुवफलवत्त्वा-द्ब्रह्मविदः शरीरे पतिते शरीरान्तरमारब्धव्यम् अप्रवृत्तक-र्मफलोपभोगार्थमिति, एतदसत् ।विदुषः ‘तस्य तावदेवचिरम्’ इति श्रुतेः प्रामाण्यात् ।ननु ‘पुण्यो वै पुण्येनकर्मणा भवति’ इत्यादिश्रुतेरपि प्रामाण्यमेव ।सत्यमेवम् ।तथापि प्रवृत्तफलानामप्रवृत्तफलानां च कर्मणां विशेषोऽस्ति ।कथम् ? यानि प्रवृत्तफलानि कर्माणि यैर्विद्वच्छरीरमारब्धम् ,तेषामुपभोगेनैव क्षयः— यथा आरब्धवेगस्य लक्ष्यमुक्ते-ष्वादेः वेगक्षयादेव स्थितिः, न तु लक्ष्यवेधसमकालमेव
In plain words
Picture him still crying out, and then someone kind comes along, unties the very ropes and pulls off the very blindfold that bound him, and says: 'Go this way -- north from here is Gandhāra, your home. Go.' Freed like that, if he is sharp enough -- asking his way from one village to the next, taking each direction on trust, working out the road someone else has pointed him toward -- he does eventually reach Gandhāra. But someone dull, or someone who keeps wandering off to gawk at other places, never does. Here is the whole picture spelled out: a man from Gandhāra, his own country, is blindfolded by robbers, stripped of any sense of direction, hungry and thirsty, and shoved into a forest crawling with tigers, robbers, every danger you can imagine. He stands there in pain, crying out, desperate to be free -- and somehow, by pure chance, someone kind frees him, and he makes it home to Gandhāra and finally he is at peace, he is happy. That is exactly the human condition. Out of your own true nature -- which is nothing but the world's own Self -- there rises this forest we call a body: made of warmth and food, packed with wind and bile and phlegm, blood, fat, flesh, bone, marrow, seed, worms, waste, stuffed with every pair of miseries you can name, heat and cold among them. And this person's eyes are bound, not by a robber's cloth now, but by delusion itself, and he is roped down by craving for a wife, children, friends, cattle, relatives -- everything he can see wanting, and things he can't see too. Merit and its opposite are the thieves that drive him into this forest in the first place. And once inside, listen to him talk: 'I am so-and-so's son.' 'These people are my family.' 'I'm happy, I'm miserable, I'm a fool, I'm brilliant, I'm virtuous, I have relatives, I was born, I died, I got old, I sinned.' 'My son died.' 'I lost everything.' 'I'm finished.' 'How will I go on?' 'What happens to me now?' 'When this body falls, do I have to pick up another one?' And here someone objects: even after real knowledge dawns, doesn't a person keep doing what's required and avoiding what's forbidden for the rest of his life? And won't he need yet another body just to live out the results of all that? And from that body, more action, and from that action, another body -- on and on forever, which would make knowledge pointless, since action never fails to bear fruit. Or take the other horn: if knowledge really does burn up all remaining action, then liberation would have to happen the instant knowledge dawns -- which means the body would drop dead on the spot. Then there'd be no teachers left alive to teach anyone, making nonsense of the very scripture that says you need a teacher to know this at all. Either knowledge doesn't free you, or its result is as unreliable as knowing the route to a country you never actually reach. But no -- there is a real difference here, between actions already in motion and actions not yet in motion. Take what was just argued: that because not-yet-active karma is bound to bear fruit eventually, the knower's body must fall and another must start up just to burn that off. That's simply wrong -- because scripture itself says of the knower, 'for him, it's only a matter of time' -- meaning, only until this body's natural end, no further. 'But,' comes the reply, 'doesn't scripture also say a good person becomes good through good action?' Yes, that's true too. And still there's a real difference between karma already set in motion and karma not yet set in motion. How? The karma that already produced the wise person's present body keeps working itself out only by being lived through -- exactly like an arrow already loosed at its target. Once it strikes, it doesn't simply vanish on impact; its momentum has to run down on its own before it finally comes to rest.
Close to the Sanskrit
Thus, while he cries out, some compassionate person, having released the very blindfold and the very bonds, would say, 'Go in this direction -- Gandhāra lies to the north, in this direction'; thus he would say. He, thus released from his bonds by the compassionate one, asking from village to village, being learned, instructed, intelligent, capable of ascertaining the path into a village as pointed out by another, would duly reach Gandhāra itself. Not so the other one -- dull-witted, or thirsting merely to see other regions. As this illustration has been described: a man, from his own country, Gandhāra, was blindfolded by thieves, without discernment, lost as to direction, afflicted by hunger, thirst, and the like, made to enter a forest filled with many dangers and calamities such as tigers and robbers; stricken with suffering, crying out, he stands wishing for release from his bonds. Somehow, he is released by some compassionate person, and having reached his own country, Gandhāra itself, he became at peace, became happy. In just this way, from the true nature of the self as identical with the world, [there is] this forest that is the body -- consisting of heat, food, and the like -- full of wind, bile, phlegm, blood, fat, flesh, bone, marrow, semen, worms, urine, and feces, and full of the many dualities of suffering such as cold and heat; this man, his eyes bound by the cloth of delusion, bound by the noose of craving for the many seen and unseen objects such as wife, son, friend, cattle, kinsman, and the rest, is made to enter [this forest] by the thieves that are merit, demerit, and the rest: 'I am the son of so-and-so'; 'these are my kinsmen'; 'I am happy, I am unhappy, I am foolish, I am learned, I am righteous, I have kinsmen, I was born, I have died, I have grown old, I am sinful'; 'my son has died'; 'my wealth is lost'; 'alas, I am ruined'; 'how shall I live?'; 'what is my resort?'; 'when this body falls, must another body be undertaken?' And [it might be objected:] even once knowledge has arisen, [a person] indeed performs, for as long as he lives, enjoined or prohibited actions; and so, for the sake of experiencing their fruit, another body must necessarily be undertaken; and thus, from actions a [further] body, and from that body again actions -- so that knowledge would be rendered useless, since actions [invariably] bear fruit. Or, [it might be said,] for the one possessing knowledge the [remaining] actions are destroyed -- but then, at the very moment of attaining knowledge, since knowledge is the cause of attaining Being, liberation would occur, and so the body's fall would occur at once; and thus there would be no [surviving] teacher, so [the scriptural statement] 'a man who has a teacher knows' would become untenable. And it would follow either that liberation does not occur from knowledge at all, or that knowledge's fruit is not invariable, like the knowledge of the means of reaching another country. No -- because there is a sound distinction between actions whose fruit has begun to operate and those whose fruit has not begun to operate. As for what was said -- that, because actions whose fruit has not begun to operate certainly have fruit, when the body of the knower of Brahman falls, another body must be undertaken for the sake of experiencing the fruit of those not-yet-operative actions -- that is not so, because of the authority of the scriptural statement about the knower: 'for him, [the delay is] only that much.' But surely, [it may be objected,] the statement 'one becomes pure through pure action', and other such scriptures, are equally authoritative. True, this is so. Even so, there is a distinction between actions whose fruit has begun to operate and those whose fruit has not. How so? Those actions whose fruit has begun to operate, by which the knower's [present] body has [already] been set in motion -- their exhaustion comes about only through being experienced; just as, for an arrow whose momentum has already begun once shot at a target, its coming to rest [happens] only from the exhaustion of that momentum, and not at the very moment the target is struck...