US-P18.046ab ।US-P18.046cd ॥
In plain words
Before you tell the two apart, the snake in the rope has the rope for its very self — and the snake is no thing at all. So it is with this 'I': no thing at all, and yet whatever being it has, it has by the Self that never stirs.
Close to the Sanskrit
Just as the rope-snake, prior to discrimination, has its self by the rope — though it is a non-entity — so indeed does this one, by the immutable Self.