One who does not know the Self-Consciousness, deluded by the knowledge of the ego, wanders with the bond of the ego, seeing though not seeing.

The irony of the verse is subtle: the one who believes they possess “knowledge of the Self” (ātmajñāna) is precisely the one who does not know Being-Consciousness. Why? Because their “knowledge” is conceptual, verbal, accumulative—they have read, memorized, debated—but they have not realized. The vañcaka—the deceived one—is not the victim of a fraudulent guru; they are the victim of their own mind, which mistakes information for transformation.

“Ātmabandha”—bondage of the Self—is a perfect oxymoron: the Self is freedom, but when it is mistaken for the non-self, it becomes its own prison. “Sa bhramati”—he wanders, he errs—does not mean he is lost in space; it means he moves without direction, that his search has no true north because the north is where he is, not where he seeks.

“Paśyann api na paśyati”—seeing, yet not seeing—is the inversion of the formula of the jīvanmukta. The unliberated one has functional physical eyes, but their “vision” is mediated by ignorance; the liberated one has the same eyes, but their vision is no longer mediated. The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā (II.7) states: “As long as there is desire, there is poverty; poverty is [equal to] death.” The one who seeks knowledge of the Self as a possession is in poverty; the one who recognizes that the Self cannot be possessed because it is the possessor, is in infinite wealth.

The irony of the verse is subtle: the one who believes they possess “knowledge of the Self” (ātmajñāna) is precisely the one who does not know Being-Consciousness. Why? Because their “knowledge” is conceptual, verbal, accumulative—they have read, memorized, debated—but they have not realized. The vañcaka—the deceived one—is not the victim of a fraudulent guru; they are the victim of their own mind, which mistakes information for transformation.

“Ātmabandha”—bondage of the Self—is a perfect oxymoron: the Self is freedom, but when it is mistaken for the non-self, it becomes its own prison. “Sa bhramati”—he wanders, he errs—does not mean he is lost in space; it means he moves without direction, that his search has no true north because the north is where he already is, not where he is seeking.

“Paśyann api na paśyati”—seeing, yet not seeing—is the inversion of the formula of the jīvanmukta. The unliberated person has functional physical eyes, but their “vision” is mediated by ignorance; the liberated one has the same eyes, but their vision is no longer mediated. The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā (II.7) states: “As long as there is desire, there is poverty; poverty is [equal to] death.” The one who seeks Self-knowledge as a possession lives in poverty; the one who recognizes that the Self cannot be possessed because it is the possessor, abides in infinite wealth.