Verse 56 — Water into Water, Space into Space

Just as water poured into the ocean, milk poured into milk, space merged into space, and air merged into air mingle together and become one indistinguishable sameness — so too, when the seeker contemplates this world of plurality as identical in essence with the Self, he realizes his total oneness with Me, the Self. [Verse 56]

This verse gives four exquisite images for the "merger" of the individual into the Self — and quietly corrects a common misunderstanding about what that merger is.

Four images of seamless oneness

The instruction (atmani abhedena — "contemplate as one with the Self") is illustrated four times over:

Pour...	...into	Result
Pot of water	The ocean	One water, no seam
Pot of milk	An ocean of milk	One milk
Pot-enclosed space	Total space	One space
Pot-enclosed air	The surrounding air	One air

flowchart LR
    W[Water in a pot] -->|pot breaks| O[Ocean]
    W2[Space in a pot] -->|pot breaks| M[Infinite space]
    O --> R[One, seamless,<br/>no motion, no travel]
    M --> R

In every case the merger is effortless and motionless — nothing has to move or travel; the illusion of separation (the "pot") simply drops, and the seamlessness that was always the case is revealed.

What "merging" really means

Here is the key correction:

Key idea. The merger is not a physical event and not a future accomplishment. Jivatma and Paramatma are already one. So "merging into Me" means: the intellectual notion that there is a division between the individual and the Supreme is dropped. The habit of thinking "the Lord is far away in his heaven, and I am down here" simply dissolves.

Before	After
"There is a gap between me and the Supreme"	"There was never a gap — only a false idea of one"
Moksha imagined as a future merger	Moksha recognised as a present fact

So this "oneness" (aikya jnanam) is freedom from a wrong idea of separation, not the creation of a new unity. The word moksha itself gets replaced, in lived experience, by peace, security, completeness (poornatvam), and settled knowledge (jnana nishta).

Verse 57 concludes the section by showing that even a worldly, active person can practise this — and by nailing down why the plurality we see is only a delusion.