In plain words
It is the Prema within it that has been drawing man. Now, if fire has no heat, it can no longer be fire. If air has no lightness, it is not air. Without coolness in it, water is not water. If a leaf has no greenness, it can no longer be a leaf. Yet all these qualities too abide in the Ātma's own nature. Precisely because in each and every thing the One who is called the embodiment of the Ātma shines as a sun of Prema, we go on drawing Him to us, loving Him and cherishing Him as we live out our life. A small example. We brought a fruit sapling and, with great fondness, tried to grow it in front of our house. With so much Prema we made a fine basin for it, gave it water and manure season after season, gave it every kind of protection so that it came to no harm, and kept on tending it. For some reason or other, that plant goes on drying up day by day. Yet it is a plant he has tended with so much Prema. After some time, the very moment it dries up, he mercilessly pulls it out with his own hands and throws it away. What is the meaning in loving it so much then, and throwing it away so cruelly now? As long as the life that is called divinity was in it, it drew us to it. The very moment that life called divinity is gone, we cruelly fling them far away. We buy some fruits with great fondness and bring them home. If they rot in any way, at once we throw them away in disappointment. And that is not all. We love a person ever so much. As long as there is life in that person, our Prema is as dear as life itself. The very moment the Śiva-nature that is the life in that person has gone, we are afraid to stay beside it. With no Prema of any of its many kinds left for it, we set about reducing it to ashes. When we reflect, taking all of these into account, and look well into what it is we love, whether the body, or their property, or caste and creed, or authority, it is none of them. The life principle alone is what we have been loving.