In plain words
Today is a welcome to the new year and a farewell to the old. This is the best of efforts to throw away stale old feelings and hold to new and sacred ones. This reckoning of the years was formed by taking Jesus as its foundation. Jesus was full of compassion. He was the embodiment of Prema. He looked on the destitute and the lowly with eyes moist with compassion, and nursed them. The moment He saw them, His heart would melt and overflow. He spent the whole of His life in service alone. He dedicated His life to Satya itself, and did all His deeds for it alone. To Satya He offered up His very neck. That is why the whole world honours Him. Though worlds change and ages roll on, His form and name endure, and people hold them worthy of worship. In every single moment of His life He kept the Satyanārāyaṇa vrata without a break. That is, He was ever intent on the worship of Satya.
But we, for our part, keep nothing but the Asatyanārāyaṇa vrata all our lives! Even when we keep the Satyanārāyaṇa vrata once a year, we mix untruth into that too and defile it. Untruth, untruth, even in the smallest matters! How loathsome this is! Having taken on a body in order to uphold the name and form of humanness, have we any right to speak untruth? Have we any right to count such a person a human being? Man must make that name true to its meaning. With that body he must show forth a man's virtues and character, his Viveka and Vairāgya, and make them blossom. He must take part in good works and help them thrive. Emperor Alexander, the great king of Greece, was a bold man who had won many kingdoms in battle. In Bhārata he had seen many great souls. As he was going back to his own country, he saw a yogi lying happily under a tree beside the way, enjoying the cool breeze. Though the yogi saw Alexander, he paid him no heed and stayed absorbed in his dhyāna, in his own thoughts. Alexander grew angry. ‘This man is a sannyāsī, a nobody. I am the emperor. He shows me no respect and lies there at his ease on the ground. Who is this fellow?’ — and with that he went up to him. The sannyāsī did not get up. Unable to bear his anger, unable to restrain his Ahaṅkāra, he kicked the yogi with his left foot. The very moment the blow struck him, the yogi looked up, opening his eyes. He burst out laughing.
Alexander was seized with still greater rage. ‘Do you know who I am? The great king of Greece! Have you not heard the name Emperor Alexander? I am the hero who has conquered and won many kingdoms in battle by the might of my own arm,’ he said. To this the saint — a great sāttvic yogi born in Bhārata, a man of pure heart — ‘Sir! You may be a great king. You may be an emperor, you may be a mighty warrior; but my experience is that by kicking me with your foot you have earned a donkey's place,’ he said. ‘Kicking with the foot is a donkey's nature, not an emperor's!’ he said. In just the same way, people born in sacred Bhārata, worthy of the name and honour of ‘children of immortality’, are sinking to the level of demons. They behave in ways contrary to humanness. To make unity firm, the people of Bhārata must develop a spiritual outlook.
From the very first stage of His life, Jesus dedicated His life to nothing but the service of His fellow men. To make Himself ready for it, He lived alone for twelve years, unknown to anyone, and with His vision turned inward He was absorbed in the thought of God. Then He said, ‘I am the messenger of God.’ Even while He served the wretched, He said, ‘I am the messenger of God.’ All of you are just such messengers. You must serve in that very spirit.
After that, for some time, He inquired deeply into the divinity within Him. ‘No, no. I am the Son of God’, and with that He drew near to God. You too must learn this. Pure of heart like little children, free of pride and Ahaṅkāra, you must draw near to God. For the next five years Jesus dwelt in the Himālayan region and wandered in Kashmir. Through His contact with yogis who had attained the Ānanda of Advaita, the sense of Advaita grew sweet to Jesus. He said, ‘I and My Father are one.’ Born in a Western land, He set foot in Bhārata, experienced the doctrine of Advaita for Himself, and showed forth the principle of the Ātma as one. The people of Bhārata too need to follow such an example. But the people of Bhārata, born in the very birthplace of the doctrine of Advaita, go to Western lands, spread manyness there and strut about in pride. This is wholly upside down. Westerners come to Bhārata to attain the unity within the many, while these leave Bhārata, the land that taught unity, and spread manyness among the peoples of other lands.