In plain words
That is why, when we love, forbearance too is ours. Before it comes the flower of compassion for all beings. That too is bound up with Prema. A small example. Our children live in our house. Along with the children, servants live there too. Our own son steals something or other in our house every day and falls into some bad habits. Yet we try in many ways to bring that boy under control somehow, punishing him, scolding him, beating him. But we do not give that boy up to the police. In the same house there is a servant woman. If the servant steals one small spoon, we at once lodge a complaint with the police. Not handing our own son over to the police however many thefts he commits, yet making such a long Rāmāyaṇa over the servant in the house for stealing one small spoon: what is the inner meaning in this? This boy is my son: this attachment, this false attachment, this narrow attachment is itself becoming a cause in society. Only because we think, ‘He is an outsider’, is there no room at all for forbearance there. When we look on all with the broad feeling, ‘All are my own’, forbearance comes to us naturally here. Only then does Prema grow in us. That is why love gives by giving and forgiving. self lives by getting and forgetting. When we want forbearance to come into us, when we make this flower of Prema blossom in us, the flower of forbearance comes to us of its own accord.
Next, the fifth, the flower of Śānti. This Śānti does not mean sitting like a stubborn man, giving no answer of any kind however much one is abused or beaten; that is not Śānti. To pay no heed at all to faults one does not have, whoever speaks of them and however much, and to stay with one's citta unmoved even while one's thoughts give the heart cause for agitation: that is what they called ‘Śānti’. That is, when the heart opens out with Prema, it turns into a kind of Śānti. In truth, Śānti is not a thing that enters from outside. Through our bad qualities, unrest arises in us to some extent.
By resolves of Satya one becomes a sādhu; by wicked resolves one comes to sorrow; only the one free of every resolve attains Śānti; only the one empty of every resolve attains Śānti.
So Śānti comes when we restrain our resolves and their wavering to some extent. What is the cause of all our sorrows today? Wicked resolves alone are the cause of sorrow. To be a sādhu does not mean merely wearing ochre robes, shaving the head and putting on a rudrākṣa garland. By resolves of Satya one becomes a sādhu. As for what this state of Śānti is like: it is like water that does not stir. When there is water in them, waves keep rising in the water with the push of the wind. Our reflection dances in it. In dirty water our reflection is just as dirty. In still water our reflection too is still. In the same way, though the Ātma is in all and the basic Satya is one alone, for the Ātma reflected in this water, which is tāmasic, it takes shape as nothing but an impure Māyā, as avidyā. In the water that is all waves, our Ātma, as it is called, is rājasic. So it shines out somewhat as waves. So they call this avidyā. Next, the reflection in water that is sāttvic and still: this is it. They call it Māyā. It is not Māyā; it is Īśvara. So the sāttvic reflection is itself the state of Īśvara. The rājasic reflection is the jīva. The tāmasic reflection is Prakṛti. These, Prakṛti, the jīva and Īśvara, are not separate things at all. We must recognise that though the original is one, the reflections are only its moods and its changes, and nothing other than it. Above all we must strive to recognise the basic Satya. Here is a fruit. Even if it is a neem fruit, sweetness too comes to it once it is fully ripe. Only when we reach the state of fullness does the sweetness called Śānti come into this. When do we gain Śānti? Only when we nurture forbearance do we gain Śānti.
Next, the sixth flower, the flower of tapas. What does this tapas mean? It is not leaving wife and children, going off to the forest and sitting with the head down and the feet up. Today we think tapas means only renouncing every tie, going off to the forest and thinking of God all the time. We must drive out the evil intent within us. The oneness of the three, Manas, body and speech, is itself tapas. Tapas is speaking out in words what we have resolved in our heart, and carrying out in action the words we have spoken. With this very thing in view they said, ‘Manasyekaṃ vacasyekaṃ karmaṇyekaṃ mahātmanaḥ.’