In plain words
“Let all the children of immortality hear”: the Ahaṅkāra that says ‘I am a child of immortality’ is itself the right Ātma principle. Positions, the strength of numbers, the strength of wealth, strength of arm and strength of intellect all melt away in the course of time - none of these is Satya; they are not eternal. All these are like clouds that drift away. They are like the moon that wanes away. They are like the light that fades away. But the Ātma, which is Bhūmā, is eternal purity, eternal Satya, eternal Jñāna.
We must not put our trust in worldly attachments, hindrances and kinships and so drive away the Ātma, our true kinsman. When the tank is full of water, frogs gather there in their thousands; the moment the water sinks away, not a single frog will live in the tank. In just the same way, while authority of every kind and riches and wealth go with us in plenty, all are friends, all are kinsmen. Should the wealth we have go from us in any way, there will be no one, not one kinsman, not one friend, to so much as speak to us. Relatives, all of them, come only as far as the doorway, only as far as the burning ground. Listen: the kinsman in times of trouble who quells bondage and never leaves is the Name of God alone; we must win this faith firmly, with deliberate effort.
We must not go on for ever wasting time on worldly matters, worldly customs and worldly worship alone. At the very first, Christ said, ‘I am the messenger of God.’ Then, at the second stage, He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ At the third stage, He said, ‘I and My Father are one.’ ‘Between the two of us the bond is inseparable,’ He said. In the Zoroastrian religion and in Islam as well, there is the teaching that through spiritual sādhana man can rise from one stage to another, higher stage. From the stage of ‘I am in the light’, the feeling ‘The light is in me’ grows, and the conviction ‘I am the light, the light is I’ becomes firm. In the language of Vedānta this very thing is set out as Sat, Cit, Ānanda.
We must believe that the Ātma principle alone, which is oneness, is the essence of every religion, the goal of every religion and the key to every religion. To strengthen this faith, observances, rules, disciplines, rites and the like came into being. But these achieve nothing other than purity of citta. They are procedures practised for the sake of those who are content with little. First of all, we tend the flower; it turns into an unripe fruit, and after a time the unripe fruit turns into a ripe fruit. Only in the ripe fruit does sweetness gather and give joy. The sweetness is the very Prema principle within us.
By rooting out, little by little, the selfish principle called individuality, and so fostering the Prema principle whose form is the collective whole, we can win the Presence in full measure; the Prema principle is the Śiva principle itself.