Text 21]
Divinity and Divine Service
113
science of the Personality of Godhead unless one is freed from the contamination of the material modes, even up to the stage of a  brāhmaṇa . When a qualified  brāhmaṇa  factually becomes a Vaiṣṇava, in the enlivened state of liberation he can know what is actually the Supreme Lord.
TEXT 21
भिद्यते हृदयग्रन्थिश्छिद्यन्ते सर्वसंशयाः । 
    क्षीयन्ते चास्य कर्माणि दृष्ट एवात्मनीश्वरे ॥२१॥
bhidyate hṛdaya-granthiś 
    chidyante sarva-saṁśayāḥ 
    kṣīyante cāsya karmāṇi 
    dṛṣṭa evātmanīśvare
bhidyate—pierced; hṛdaya—heart; granthiḥ—knots; chidyante—cut to pieces; sarve—all; saṁśayāḥ—misgivings; kṣīyante—terminated; ca—and; asya—his; karmāṇi—chain of fruitive actions; dṛṣṭa—having seen; eva—certainly; ātmani—unto the self; īśvare—dominating.
TRANSLATION
Thus the knots of the heart and all misgivings are cut to pieces. The chain of fruitive actions [karma] is terminated when one sees the self as master.
PURPORT
Attainment of scientific knowledge of the Personality of Godhead means seeing one's own self simultaneously. As far as the identity of the living being as spirit self is concerned, there are a number of speculations and misgivings. The materialist does not believe in the existence of the spirit self, and empiric philosophers believe in the impersonal feature of the whole spirit without individuality of the living beings. But the transcendentalists affirm that the soul and the Supersoul are two different identities qualitatively one but quantitatively different. There are many other theories, but all these different speculations are at once cleared off as soon as Śrī Kṛṣṇa is realized in truth by the process of  bhakti-yoga . Śrī Kṛṣṇa is like the sun, and the materialistic speculations about the Absolute Truth are like the darkest midnight. As soon as the Kṛṣṇa sun is arisen within one's heart, the darkness of materialistic speculations about the Absolute Truth and the living beings is at once cleared off. In the presence of the