In plain words
Here is a small example of this. Two or three days ago some political leaders came to meet Me. The questions they asked when they came were purely meaningless. I am telling you this in the thought that it is good for you too to understand it. In the course of some conversation, they asked, ‘Who are you, sir?’ To that I gave just the right, straight answer: ‘Among ten men I am always a man; among ten women I am always a woman. When I am among ten children, I am a child. In solitude I am Parabrahman,’ I said. Not only I: you too, when you are with ten elders, act like elders. When you are among ten women, your manner goes just like the women's. Even a fine Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at the time he plays with ten children, at the time he plays with his grandson, plays like a child himself too. But when he is alone, he thinks of himself as the witness of all. To ask the price of the goods that come to the bazaar, whether one is a buyer or not, is the habit of today. Whether you have the means to buy or not, calling out or asking, ‘How much is this, sir?’ is a mistake that has become the habit of today. ‘In the same way, whether you have any wish to attain this or no wish to attain it, your asking its form and name: you have asked just the question a fool of today asks,’ I said. Only a person who does not know himself keeps asking others, ‘Who are you?’ A person who has first of all tried to know himself does not set about inquiring of others, ‘Who are you?’ Well then, if you ask whether, in worldly matters, he knows nothing at all: it was only knowing Me as Sathya Sai Baba that they came here from the city, was it not? It is not as though they came without knowing! In what spirit did they put the question ‘Who are you?’ So we can only call it an unknowing, fickle-minded foolishness. That is, the whole world is going on in just such a state. So, even if we merely waste all our time, labour in many ways, develop some kinds of śraddhā and Bhakti, drink in all manner of things of God, and read all the Vedas and śāstras, itihāsas and purāṇas, this bears fruit only when we show forth in action the divinity within us or the true sayings; otherwise we become people who have wasted our time, our body, and our life too.