In plain words
For the multitude of men, sailing in the boat called saṃsāra through a time of every kind of tumult, the lighthouse is none other than the spiritual light. Without trying to win that divine power, men toss about in ceaseless anxieties and endless agonies, for the attaining of what is not attained. The fine light that shows the way to this is the spiritual light alone. If we have forgotten that it is always beside us as our companion, that is nothing but folly; it is not Viveka. Man is wasting what has come into his hands instead of making it worthwhile. Looking at this form of Prakṛti and its distortion, one does not know whether to laugh or to weep. Man, who thinks he knows everything, has not come to know this one thing. See how individuality stands in the world now: without knowing what the special greatness of creation is, people live in a middle state between birth and death.
Every man longs for Śānti and happiness and strives eagerly for them. They are neither caught in the hand nor won; they keep going round. Toiling without rest, spinning like a ring, like a top, what does he catch? What does he win? He does not reflect on that. To make humanness worthwhile in the world, we must first long for the divine, the spiritual. Only then can we win Ānanda, comfort and good fortune. Our Principal said that everything in the world is being spoilt by ‘reason’. ‘Reason’ is good; it is the matter that is not right. Unable to know the Ātma-tattva that moves in the field of the heart, man joins with what is crooked and is spoilt; and without knowing the special greatness within humanness, without the ideal of what we should take as the main thing, nothing at all becomes worthwhile.
Just as there is no cloth without cotton, no ornament without gold, no pot without clay, no stool without wood, there is no Prakṛti without Brahman. We must install the Brahma-tattva on the altar of the heart. What do we gain by striving after what lasts only for a time? Is humanness the senses? The body? The Manas? The antaḥkaraṇa? Which is it? Among such matters as these: where have we come from? Where are we going? How far can we settle our life by asking this? If you think about it, we question everyone we come upon, “Who are you? Who are you?”, but “Who am I?” is not there at all. All the news of the world draws him, but the news within himself he does not know. Whatever else one knows or does not know, if one cannot know who one is, all that one knows is wasted; it is not worthwhile.
We have come from the Ātma-tattva. We must go back and join the Ātma-tattva itself. The water of the sea becomes cloud, turns to rain, becomes a stream, and merges back into the sea itself. In the same way the antaḥkaraṇa sets out from the ocean of the Ātma, joins the stream of Prakṛti, and must reach back to the Ātma-tattva itself. We do not know the from address; we do not know the to address. We know only the address where we are. That is why it was said that the company of elders is needed, to fulfil such an aim of life.
‘In satsaṅga, nissaṅga; in nissaṅga, nirmoha; in nirmoha, the unmoving tattva; in the unmoving tattva, Jīvanmukti.’
As the verse says, only then can we know That which pervades everything. For that too we must keep certain rules and disciplines. Now, because the political and social conditions in Bhārata are attacking Dharma, our Sanātana culture has been forgotten. Our aim must be set on the spiritual institution. Only then is there Ānanda in life. An institution that stands today will not stand tomorrow. Religion too we take as just an institution. We do not inquire into the special greatness of religion, into its worth. Mata, religion, has come from mati itself. Mata is only for the person who has mati. Religions teach the glory of the Ātma, oneness. They do not preach manyness.
‘Sahasra-śīrṣaḥ puruṣaḥ’ does not mean that the Paramātma has a thousand heads. Even for all this crowd gathered here, the heads are different but the heart is one. When it says ‘sahasra-śīrṣaḥ’, it only describes the Paramātma as filling all beings; it means nothing else. Now, there is the current. It serves the decorations, the fan, the light, and helps you to hear as well, and besides it is of use in many ways inside our homes. The upādhi differs, but the current is one. So too, inside every person as well, the Paramātma has become present equally. That is the meaning.
But if the one Paramātma is in all alike, why so many hardships and losses and troubles? Why the sorrows? So some people ask, putting meaningless, idle questions. We look outside, but we do not look within. This is a difference of upādhi; in the indwelling Ātma there is no difference. Hardship and happiness belong to the upādhi alone. Now look. In our home in the evening we switch on a good, very bright light. When we lie down to sleep, we keep one that is quite dim. Bright or dim, the difference lies in the bulb; the current is not at fault at all. In the same way there is no change in the Paramātma. That is our own fault!
We have taken on a body. We think: this is Satya, this is eternal and spotless. We believe it. But this is Asatya, impermanent, a sham.