AVG 11.2

Chapter 11 (Coherence on a choiceless witnessing of happenings) Verse 2
ईश्वरः सर्वनिर्माता नेहान्य इति निश्चयी ।
अन्तर्गलितसर्वाशः शान्तः क्वापि न सज्जते ॥११-२॥

PURPORT:
Knowing for certain that the creator of
all is intrinsic to ones perception and reliant on
one’s spiritual inspiration while knowing there is
none else responsible, one becomes tranquil with
all their expectations set to rest within and
is not attached to anything whatsoever.

TRANSLITERATION:
ईश्वरः सर्वनिर्माता न इह अन्यःइति निश्चयी ।
īśvaraḥ sarvanirmātā na iha anyaḥ iti niścayī ।
अन्तर्गलित सर्वाशः शान्तः क्व अपि नसज्जते ॥ ११-२॥
antargalita sarvāśaḥ śāntaḥ kva api na sajjate ॥11-2॥

MEANING:
īśvaraḥ (ईश्वरः)* = spiritual inspiration*
sarvanirmātā (सर्वनिर्माता)= producer of all (compound of sarva (सर्व) meaning 'all' and nirmātā (निर्माता) meaning 'producer/creator')
na (न) = not
iha (इह) = here
anyaḥ (अन्यः) = other
iti (इति) = thus
niścayī (निश्चयी) = one who has known for certain ।
antargalita sarvāśaḥ (अन्तर्गलितसर्वाशः) = with all expectations and desires extinguished from within (compound of antar (अन्तर् ) meaning 'within/inside/intrinsic' and galita (गलित) meaning 'waned/decayed/extinguished' and sarvāśaḥ (सर्वाशः) meaning all expectation and hope)
śāntaḥ (शान्तः) = calm/peace
kva (क्व) = to what (see note below for context)
api (अपि) = at all; note: क्व अपि (kva api) is read together and it means 'in anything whatsoever'
na (न) = not
sajjate (सज्जते) = is attached ॥ 11-2॥

COMMENT:
This beautiful verse talks about creation and clarifies that the maker, the perceiver, the one who discerns, recognizes and realizes the world, the universe and the cosmos at large is nothing more than our perceptual selves. We make the universe in our own image just as the ant, the bat, the horse, the cuttlefish, the amoeba and other like sentients make their own worlds in ways appropriate to their own environments; where an organism is the sum of its parts operating in ever expanding functional circles outwards towards the limits of its own world, universe, cosmos; and, for that organism to survive, procreate and to have homeostatic imperative, all of the constituent functional circles for that organism must work cooperatively. This is the universe - a perceptual creation specific to the organism as a result of the organism sensing and reacting to their own environmental stimuli.
In this sense, even creation is a concept - a designation that is a tricky endeavor when deliberated deeply. Let us consider some alternatives insofar as its creation - the universe has to be made either "by itself" or "by another" or "by both itself and another" or "by no cause".

Taking the first alternative, if the universe were to be made or produced by someone or something, we can infer that it cannot be made by itself, for that would imply that the universe makes its own substance. This means that the first alternative only becomes a self-reflexive statement (a statement without basis which avers that a thing uses itself to make itself - the universe would then be both the subject and object at once which does not make sense as subject and object are different).
The universe cannot be caused by another or 'some other thing' because the 'other thing' that created the universe would be the causal condition for the universe and now the 'other thing' ought to be considered as the originating substance and hence would be the same as the universe itself (and not the 'other thing') and thus not tenable.

The third alternative, that is, of both creation by itself and by the other (working in tandem) is not tenable as we have already established that an entity created by itself is not possible. 
The fourth alternative that the universe was created neither by itself nor by another can mean one of two things - on the one hand, it can mean that the causeless substratum that we refer to as 'the universe' was always there since eternity; or, on the other hand, it can mean that the universe did not have a substratum since eternity, but was suddenly willed into existence out of nothing - again, an untenable concept as we either have to look to the existence of supreme beings that willed the system into existence or an as-yet undiscovered explanation that comports with our reason-based observations that allows for the manifest universe to be created out of nothing. In short, the universe cannot be made by no cause, because then we are in the trap of externalizing the process and invoking magical creation.

Creation is a difficult concept to grapple with, and the only plausible way to explain the beginnings will be go to back to the potential explanation offered by way of the dependent origination** of entities with the idea that a set of specific physical conditions working together in a co-dependent manner led to the creation and the expansion of the universe. I remain exceedingly ignorant to even speculate on what might be those set of dependent conditions that seemed to act and interlink together to produce the universe as we know it, but, a useful thought experiment in this regard might be in looking at the set of fundamental physical constants that seemed to be exquisitely tuned for the development of organic life and matter within our earth and (potentially) the universe at large - leading one to the notion that there must have been many possible sets of conditions that must have given rise to many possible potential universes with different possible physical constants (the majority of which may have been untenable insofar as viability), but we seemed to be alive and well within the one where conditions aligned to produce the right set of physical constants tuned for the production of matter and viable for organic life.

*The sense of spiritual inspiration that one finds within oneself can be the closest manifestation of the word used by Ashtavakra in the lines here - Ishwara (as a concept from ancient Hinduism, the word is traditionally taken to mean a supreme being that rules over the cosmos and the individuated beings).

**The term dependent origination or dependent arising as it relates to this discussion is a reminder for the seeker to avoid the extreme sides of any viewpoint - enumerated in the following manner - of things never ever ceasing (and thus production going on for the foreseeable eternity) or things never ever arising (and extinction being the only truth till the end of time) or things always being annihilated till the end of time (and nothing ever produced or created) or a belief in the eternity of the phenomenal world/universe or the fact that all of manifest reality being explained as one single truth that subsumes all else or all of manifest reality explained as infinite truths (the opposite of the single truth approach just mentioned) or things coming into being of its own nature (without any underlying conditions) or things being extinguished from existence of its own volition (without any underlying conditions) - all of these extreme views must be avoided as each one of these is a one-sided view that hews to one extreme position. The seeker chooses a path of moderation understanding that all things are dependent upon something else and nothing whatsoever arises independently. Given that everything is mutually dependent, everything is devoid of its own-essence and hence empty of a inherent foundational stratum that endures for all eternity. In addition, understanding that to take emptiness of things as another extreme view that solves and explains everything (as a form of absolutism) is to (again) fall into the same set of issues outlined above (any absolutism being just another form of choosing an extreme position); emptiness is not a view; but, rather a provisional concept to help the seeker out of any inherent attachment to any views.