Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 1, Brahmana 4. In the beginning, the Self: I am Brahman
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Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.
Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.
Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.
Meditate on the Self as your world
So this is Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra: as Brahman it came to be through fire among the gods, and as the Brahmana among men; as a Kshatriya through the Kshatriya, as a Vaisya through the Vaisya, as a Sudra through the Sudra. Therefore men seek a world among the gods through fire, and among men through the Brahmana, for through these two forms Brahman came to be. Now if a man departs from this world without having seen his own world, that world, being unknown, does not protect him, as the Vedas unrecited or a deed undone do not. Even if one who does not know this performs a great and meritorious deed, in the end it surely wastes away. One should meditate on the Self alone as one's world. He who meditates on the Self alone as his world, his work does not waste away; for out of this very Self he brings forth whatever he desires.
So the four orders (Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya, Sudra) all came from Brahman: as fire among the gods and as the Brahmana among men, and likewise as Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra in their human forms. That is why people seek their heavenly world through fire and their human world through the Brahmana, since Brahman manifested in just these two forms. Now, if someone leaves this life without having realized his own true world (the Self), that world cannot help him, any more than an unlearned Veda or an unperformed rite can; and even great good deeds done in ignorance eventually run out. Therefore one should contemplate the Self alone as one's world (loka). For the one who does, his work never runs dry, because out of that very Self he produces whatever he desires.
In the commentaries
Sankara reads the close of this mantra as turning from the cosmic and social orders back to the one saving teaching. Rites and the merits they earn are done within ignorance, and so they are exhaustible; when the merit is spent the result is spent, and they cannot finally protect or fulfill. Therefore, he says, one must meditate on the Self as one's own true world, the inexhaustible ground from which every desired thing arises, rather than chase worlds that are won and then lost. The Self alone is the world that does not run out.