In plain words
In the same way we must enquire well into this Satya, at what times, in what matters and in what duties we are to use the senses in the proper way, and so restrain our senses.
Embodiments of the divine Ātma!
You may say the body is merely inert. If the body is inert, still it grows day after day! How can we call it inert? There need be no consciousness for growing. If we sweep our house every day and throw a little rubbish in one spot, after a month it becomes a big heap. So the heap too keeps growing, along with this body. This body too keeps growing when we put something or other into it every day: tiffin, coffee, dinner, some food or other. If we hold back these very foods and do not feed it, this body will not grow at all. In the same way, since the body is inert, how must we strive to restrain these senses? We must never let these senses into agitation, nor, beyond that, into upheaval. Nor must we put it to use for useless sorrow. For sorrow is not natural to man. Ānanda alone is natural to him. For man, to whom that Ānanda is natural, sorrow is merely something made up. That is why, when we let the senses into agitation, anger or grief even a little, our strength and the power of the Ātma too wear away to that extent. In truth, the body's ill health springs from the thoughts of the mind alone. Through these griefs, sorrows and agitations man grows old very quickly. That is why the root cause of our ruining our holy humanness is, above all, the lack of control of the senses. So we must offer the second flower, control of the senses, to the Paramātma.
Sarvabhūtadayā puṣpaṃ. We keep looking merely at the humanness that lies in multiplicity, holding to difference and forgetting divinity. In this way we are sinking into physical desires. Then, when worldly desires go unfulfilled, we turn against God.
When every desire you crave is fulfilled, Bhakti for God rises high and fondness grows; when the desires you crave are not fulfilled, Bhakti wanes and aversion to God grows.
Through these worldly desires, through lacking control of the senses, through failing to see the Satya that God is everywhere, we keep losing even our natural powers. Our smṛtis said, ‘Ekaṃ sat viprāḥ bahudā vadanti.’ Though what exists is only One, we show forth the One, as the words say, ‘I am one; may I become many’, and yet go on experiencing the many as well. As I said yesterday, we sow a seed. From that seed a huge, mighty tree grows. On that tree many thousands of fruits come. Into each and every fruit the very seed that was sown makes its way. In the same way, from the seed called divinity the tree called citta has grown. On this tree have come the fruits called living beings and humanness. Into each and every one of these fruits the seed called divinity goes and settles. In the Bhagavad Gītā: ‘Bījaṃ māṃ sarvabhūtānām.’ ‘In all living beings I am manifest as the Ātma, in the form of a seed,’ He said. So we must recognise the Satya that the Ātma, which is divinity, is in everyone in the form of a seed. We must live our lives with Prema and compassion towards all. ‘The Lord of all beings’: only when we believe this Satya can we offer the flower ‘compassion for all beings’ to God, fragrant and fair.
The fourth is the flower of forbearance. This forbearance is truly man's chief quality. But because man has grown narrow feelings, he tries to live only within a certain boundary, ‘I and mine’. He looks on everyone other than himself, his family and his relatives as his enemies. As long as this feeling lasts, the flower of forbearance cannot blossom in us. In truth, all are our own. If we recognise the Satya that all are parts belonging to divinity, forbearance comes into our grasp in an instant.