In plain words
While the crow enjoys the bitter lime, the cuckoo drinks the sweet nectar in the mango blossoms and rejoices. Common folk rejoice in experiencing the principle of Prakṛti, which is impermanent, transient and makes delusions. Those of even mind do not fall prey to such a thing; they drink the nectar at the lotus feet of God and are glad. There is a great difference between what a man experiences in waking and what a man experiences in dream. That is, what is the basis of experiencing in dream? When we inquire what causes dreams to come, sleep itself proves to be the cause of the dream. If there is no sleep at all, no dream can come. So the dreams of these delusions keep pursuing the one sunk in the sleep of infatuation. Those who live in an even mind have no such thing as infatuation, so the Advaita called oneness comes to them. Good and bad, joy and sorrow: all that appears as two is only the reflection of one thing. “Ekameva advitīyaṃ brahma,” said our Vedāntins. Then we must inquire what the reason is for experiencing this one principle of Brahman as many.
The Sacred Word ‘I’ Belongs to the Ātma Alone
The pandits who spoke this morning about the Veda also gave you some examples. In them we keep saying, ‘The tree is, the hillock is, the bird is, the stone is, the rock is.’ Yet though in the hillock, the tree and the bird, in all of them, the forms and names are different, the ‘is’ is one and the same in all. In just the same way, I shall put a question. Who is Ellayya? Up he stands, saying, ‘I.’ Who is Gopāla? Up he stands, saying, ‘I.’ Who is Rāma? Up he stands, saying, ‘I.’ Ellayya, Gopāla and Rāma, about whom I asked, are different in these forms and names. But to the question I asked, the word ‘I, I, I’ is one and the same in all of them.