तावदेव निरोद्धव्यं यावद्{}हृदिगतं क्षयम् । एतज्ज्ञानं च ध्यानं च शेषोऽन्यो ग्रन्थविस्तरः ॥ 5॥ नैव चिन्त्यं न चाचिन्त्यं न चिन्त्यं चिन्त्यमेव च । पक्षपातविनिर्मुक्तं ब्रह्म संपद्यते ध्रुवम् ॥ 6
tāvadeva niroddhavyaṃ yāvad{}hṛdigataṃ kṣayam | etajjñānaṃ ca dhyānaṃ ca śeṣo'nyo granthavistaraḥ || 5|| naiva cintyaṃ na cācintyaṃ na cintyaṃ cintyameva ca | pakṣapātavinirmuktaṃ brahma saṃpadyate dhruvam || 6
«Only so long need one restrain [the mind], as until it comes to exhaustion in the heart. This is both knowledge and contemplation; the rest is other, an expansion of books. Neither thinkable nor unthinkable, both thinkable and unthinkable — one attains Brahman, freed from partiality, without doubt».
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The verse contains an expression worth transcribing and remembering: śeṣo 'nyo grantha-vistaraḥ, «the rest is other — an expansion of books». Grantha means «book» (literally «a bundle», from bound palm leaves), vistara — «expansion, stretching out». That is, everything besides what has been said is declared a drawn-out bookish exposition — and this is said in a book that has spent a hundred lines on diagrams and syllables.
This honesty is worth much, and here is why. Every teaching, in the end, is obliged to say what in it is essential and what is scaffolding; and the ability to distinguish one from the other is the first thing to demand of a teacher. A book that acknowledges that most of itself is expansion deserves more trust than one where everything is equally important.
The verse's second half — naiva cintyam na cācintyam, «neither thinkable nor unthinkable, both thinkable and unthinkable» — is the famous fourfold negation, discussed when reading Parabrahma (1.14). The analysis is given there, and there is no need to repeat it; let me recall only the conclusion: this fourfold negation denies not the object, but the fitness of our measures — and so it does not prevent the object from having a face. And everything is concluded by the word pakṣapāta-vinirmuktam, «freed from partiality». Pakṣapāta literally means «falling to one side»; and it is said that one attains who falls to no one's side. This word is usually applied to the impartiality of a judge; but applied to the highest, it means something else, and better: He is never on a side, because He is one and the same to every side.