In plain words
You can easily wake those who are asleep. But it is beyond anyone's power to wake those who shut their eyes and pretend to be asleep. In the same way, you can talk about a thing to those who know it. To those who do not know it, you can explain it in a way they will understand, and so make it known. To make it known to those who half know it is an impossible task.
“My divine powers are not something attained”
A few moments ago, the Union Minister T. A. Pai and Gokak, both of them, taught you many things well, in a way you could understand. Age after age, people have gone on giving the principle of God so many different names. Is it right to give passing names to divinity? People cannot think or speak beyond certain limits. This is possible only for those who have recognised Swami's principle of Prema. My divine powers are not something I attained. They were not added along the way. You, too, have not come here to recognise these divine powers. I know that “you have come to take refuge in divinity, to experience it and to rejoice in it.”
God has to make His powers known in keeping with the place, the time and the circumstances. People have long called them wondrous deeds, camatkāras, ‘miracles’. But they are not camatkāra alone. After camatkāra, the second is saṃskāra, the third paropakāra, the fourth sākṣātkāra. These four steps are there in the protection of devotees and in the establishment of Dharma.
Attraction is the chief mark of divinity
Camatkāra can be put another way: ‘attracting’. ‘Ramayati iti Rāmaḥ’: Rāma, too, drew people to Himself. ‘Karṣati iti Kṛṣṇaḥ’: Kṛṣṇa, too, drew people to Himself through camatkāras. Attracting is the first quality of divinity. It is the chief mark of divinity.
What is the attracting for? To deceive people? To lead them astray? No, no. Only to refine them. What is the aim of saṃskāra? Precisely to make them people given to paropakāra. The supreme aim is just this: that, vowed to paropakāra, they forget self-interest, recognise the oneness that is in all, and attain sākṣātkāra. ‘Na karmaṇā na prajayā dhanena tyāgenaike amṛtatva mānaśuḥ’; only through sacrifice, only through paropakāra, is it possible to attain the state of Mokṣa called immortality. Through saṃskāra, people develop a spirit of sacrifice. It is vital to recognise that ‘Swami's resolve is precisely to spread His vast principle of Prema over the human race of the whole world.’ What flows as an undercurrent through all four of these steps is that very principle of Prema.
The power to attract comes only through Prema
Now we shall look a little into the first step, called camatkāra. Take just a flower, for example. If its form and its fragrance are not attractive, no one will want it. No one will take it in hand. Even when fruit is set out in the market, if it is not attractive we cannot buy it and enjoy it.