Freed while living
And so, in whatever beings the knowledge of Brahman has arisen, through the sentences of Vedānta and through a true teacher's instruction, they are the ones freed while still living. This is the meaning.
Thus, those beings in whom the knowledge of Brahman has arisen, through the teachings of Vedānta and the instruction of a true guru, are liberated while still living (jīvanmukta). This is the meaning.
The knowing of Brahman that makes one free while living is best described as:
- The recognition of the one consciousness present in all beings, seen directly
- A firm belief that Brahman exists somewhere beyond the world
- A vivid feeling reached at the height of meditation and then lost
- Information about Brahman gathered and held in memory
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Free while the body lives
And so, in whatever beings the knowing of Brahman has arisen, through the sentences of Vedanta and through a true teacher's instruction, those are the ones free while still living.
The opening words gather up what came before. The doubt was that the jiva, small and ego-bound, and the Lord, boundless and all-knowing, are too unlike to be the one that the great saying calls them. That doubt was met by reading the words for their aimed-at sense, where on both sides what remains is pure consciousness. Standing on that, the fruit can be named: where this knowing has dawned, the person is free already, with the body still living and breathing.
Two things bring the knowing, and they work as one. The sentences of Vedanta carry the truth and set it before the hearer; a true teacher turns those sentences toward their aimed-at sense and shows that what they point to is the very awareness by which the hearer is present now. And the knowing has a particular reach. It is not a belief about Brahman held at a distance, nor a feeling that crests and fades, but the recognition of Brahman as the one consciousness in all beings, the same awareness in every mind as water is the one substance in every wave. Because it sees what is already so, it is direct, not reached by inference.
Freedom, on this teaching, is not a place arrived at or a state earned later. It is the falling away of one mistake, the taking of oneself to be small and separate, in the light of what was always so. So it can be present now, in this life, in this body. The cause is given here, and the portrait of such a person, with the loosening of action's hold, is left to the words that follow.
If the freedom this passage names is only the ending of one mistake about yourself, what in you is waiting for it to happen later?
In the commentaries
The 'and so' looks back to what was just settled: once the great saying is read for its aimed-at sense, the quarrel between the little-knowing jiva and the all-knowing Lord dissolves in the one consciousness, and the fruit can now be named. The knowing that frees is not a notion held about Brahman, but the cognition of Brahman as the single awareness present in all beings, the same consciousness in every mind as water is the one substance in every wave. It comes by two means working as one: the sentences of Vedanta carry the truth, and a true teacher turns them toward their aimed-at sense and shows it already standing in the hearer's own experience. Knowing of this order is direct, not inferred, and where it has risen liberation is not awaited; it already is, with the body still living.