Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 2, Brahmana 4. Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi: for the sake of the Self
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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.
Where all waters meet
As the sea is the one meeting place of all waters, so the skin is the one meeting place of all that is touched, the nostrils of all scents, the tongue of all tastes, the eye of all forms, the ear of all sounds, the mind of all intentions, the heart of all knowings, the hands of all works, the organ of generation of all delights, the organ of release of all that is let go, the feet of all journeys, and speech of all the Vedas.
Just as the sea is the single meeting place of all waters, so each faculty is the single meeting place of its objects: the skin for all touches, the nose for all smells, the tongue for all tastes, the eye for all forms, the ear for all sounds, the mind for all intentions, the heart for all knowings, the hands for all works, the generative organ for all delights, the organ of release for all that is let go, the feet for all journeys, and speech for all the Vedas.
In the commentaries
The faculties are the meeting-points where the many return to one: objects resolve into the senses, the senses into mind, mind into intellect, intellect into Pure Intelligence. What then remains is Brahman alone, a homogeneous mass of intelligence, like a lump of salt with neither inside nor outside.