Verse 2.543

Sanskrit text and transliteration:

विद्वत्ताव्यतिरेकेण फलं भिन्नं यथा तथा ।
अकामहततायास्तु परानन्दो न भिद्यते ॥ ५४३ ॥

vidvattāvyatirekeṇa phalaṃ bhinnaṃ yathā tathā |
akāmahatatāyāstu parānando na bhidyate || 543 ||

English translation of verse 2.543:

Just as the fruit (to be attained) is not different from being a knower of Brahman, so also the supreme bliss does not differ from the state of the absence of desire, (misery, and its source).

Notes:

It was stated earlier that śruti seeks to convey the non-difference of Brahman and Ātman when it speaks about “This one who is in the human person, and that one who is in the sun, He is one.” The critic argues that, even though Brahman and Ātman are one, the knowledge of this oneness leads to two distinct results, viz., (1) the absence of misery along with ignorance, which is its source, and (2) the attainment of the unsurpassable bliss. These two results, the critic urges, are different from each other inasmuch as, while the one is negative, the other is positive.

This view is wrong. The Muṇḍaka text (III, ii, 9) says that the knower of Brahman becomes Brahman indeed. Knowing Brahman is, Indeed, attaining it. There is no fruit yet to be attained apart from being the knower of Brahman. Brahman is infinite and non-dual. When a person realizes Brahman as non-different from his inward Self, he has attained the fruit, and there is nothing left to be attained by him. The fruit attained by the knower of Brahman may be described negatively as absence of desire and positively as the enjoyment of bliss. The latter is not different from the former. There appears to be difference between the two only in our manner of speaking. Just as the origination of pot-sherds is negatively referred to as the destruction of pot, so also the attainment of bliss is negatively spoken of as the absence of desire and evil along with ignorance, which is their source. It is necessary to emphasize here that the Advaitin does not admit the existence of negative entity. See verses (31) and (32) of the Śīkṣāvallī.

The first line of the verse, according to Ānandagiri, has to be construed by adding the negative particle nañ as follows: vidvattāvyatirekeṇa, i.e., vidvadrūpāt, phalaṃ yathā bhinnaṃ na bhavati tathā... Ānandagiri explains the word akāmahatatāyāḥ which occurs in the second line of the verse as samūlānarthanivṛtteḥ.