Yajnavalkya Kanda. Adhyaya 4, Brahmana 3. The self-luminous Self: waking, dream, and the light of man
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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.
The seer without a second
Clear as water, one, the seer without a second, he becomes. This is the world of Brahman, O emperor. Thus did Yajnavalkya instruct him. This is his highest goal, this his highest treasure, this his highest world, this his highest bliss. On a mere fraction of this very bliss other beings live.
When the apparent second thing is gone, the self stands clear and limpid like still water, one, the seer without a second (advaita). This, O emperor, is the world of Brahman, Yajnavalkya taught Janaka. This is the self's highest goal, its highest treasure, its highest world, its highest bliss (ananda). All other beings live on only a small fraction of this one supreme bliss.
In the commentaries
Sankara reads this as the summit of the teaching: in that state the Self becomes like still, clear water, one, the witness, without a second, and this is the sphere of Brahman, its supreme attainment and supreme bliss. The bliss is infinite precisely because it does not depend on the contact of an organ with an object; the small joys of the world, he says, are only a particle of this very bliss, doled out by ignorance and tasted only when sense meets object. All other beings live on that fragment, while here the whole is present at once. For Sankara deep sleep thus discloses, behind the night of ignorance, the one fearless bliss that the waking self always already is.