In plain words
When sorrow is over, then comes happiness; when happiness is over, sorrow comes; one and the same state seems sorrow at the start and happiness at the end, that is all; when the one sun rises, it is day! When it sets, night!
Man pushes oneness away, welcomes difference, sets a value on vikṣepa, and sinks and rises in grief. Multiplicity appears through the upādhis, but what exists is one alone! What flows through everything and does the work is a single current! But it is not possible to see the current by itself; whether the current is there or not has to be found out through the upādhis alone. If this fan stops, there is no current! If it turns, there is current; if the bulb lights, there is current; if it does not light, there is no current. To recognise the current, an upādhi is needed.
In the same way, the unmanifest power of the Paramātma needs an upādhi that it upholds; otherwise it cannot be recognised. If the fan says, “I am turning by myself,” we reject those words as folly. We know that all the work is done only through the invisible current flowing within. In the same way, is it the eyes that see? Is it the brain that thinks? Because the unmanifest divine power enters into them, each of them carries out its own duties successfully; but they have no individuality of their own at all.
‘Prema’ is only another name for that divine power. So long as difference or the feeling of separateness lies hidden in the mind, that divine feeling of Prema does not come. We must merge the feeling of Prema, which is oneness, in the principle of the Ātma, which is Divinity. That is the final experience of parā-bhakti. Once oneness is firm, since there is no other, he sees himself by himself, speaks to himself by himself, does every action by himself, and lives on, joined with himself, playing, rejoicing and enjoying.
Such a state is not possible for everyone to reach. For ordinary men, for those who have no eye of Jñāna, as Śrī Kṛṣṇa said (Avajānanti māṃ mūḍhāḥ mānuṣī tanu māśritaṃ), fools cannot know Me, who have come taking refuge in a human body. Seeing the outer form, they decide that He is only a man. Yet the true nature is Divinity itself; they notice the principle of the body, but they do not notice the principle of the Ātma. Unless we grasp the principle of the Ātma, it is hard indeed to recognise the Divinity that is the inner Ātma of all beings.
For Divinity to come easily within sight, śraddhā, niṣkāma karma and Jñāna, these three, are needed. We must not go down into actions with the feeling of being an individual; turning the Buddhi, the citta and all of it towards the Ātma, we must take up our actions. The jīva, born of karma, must win release through karma and die in karma itself. Bondage comes through karma alone; Mokṣa comes through karma alone. So karma is the first step of jijñāsā. If we practise karma with a sacred feeling, with the will to do good to others and free of fault, happiness and Śānti will come in the future. With śraddhā and without looking for the fruit, we must practise karma through divine prompting.