In plain words
Teachers!
In the world, man is always wishing for some change. We must enquire a little into what kind of change that is. Every man keeps hoping to reach some higher state, some better condition. Every student pursuing his studies in a school is eager, each year, to go up to the next class. No student wishes to stay in the same class, the same standard, year after year. In just the same way, those who are sādhakas, and teachers, must make the right effort to rise from where we stand now to a higher level.
In Buddhism: ‘Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’, ‘Saṅghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’, ‘Dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’. These three kinds of teaching show the way: what level we must reach, and how we must attain the goal. ‘Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.’ That means he has begun a relationship with just a few people. It is his depending on his own body. But because he depends on his own body all the time, he cannot enjoy any kind of happiness at all in this world. From that very place of the individual, ‘Saṅghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’. He has entered society. Without society, individuality does not flourish. Not only does it fail to flourish: there is no room even to bring individuality out in some measure. Man's birth, man's life, and man's end too, all stay bound up with this very fellowship. So the second path is going from the individual to join the group called the fellowship. That is, a journey from the place called ‘I’ to the place called ‘WE’. A journey from the place called ‘vyakti’ to what is called ‘samaṣṭi’. That is why, as a rule, every man in the world keeps only these two in mind. These two steps are not all: there is another, a third step, called the goal. Only when this third step, the goal, is reached does humanness reach its culmination. ‘Dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’: Dharma means ‘Dhārayatīti dharmaḥ’. That which upholds the world. That is, the principle that pervades the universe must enter into it. So, with ‘Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’ being not merely an intellect, with ‘Saṅghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’ it entered society once again. We must enter this step called the end.
Jesus has been saying this very thing in the Bible. ‘I am the messenger of God,’ He said. This is what is called ‘Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’. After some more time had passed, He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ That is, He entered the all, in which all are children of God. Third, He said, ‘I and My Father are one.’ This is precisely ‘Dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’.
In the same way, in the land of Persia too, ‘I am in the light,’ he said. This is ‘Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’, that is, staying only within a limit. After some more time had passed, the second step, ‘the light is in me’: this reached the level of ‘Saṅghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’. Third, ‘I am the light’: this is ‘Dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’. This has gone on showing forth divinity in all its breadth.
Our Vedic śāstras have called this very thing Dvaita. What is Dvaita? To live following only one's own Buddhi, with the sense of difference between I and others: that is what they have called Dvaita. This has reached only the level of ‘Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’. Next, the second is Viśiṣṭa Advaita. That is, in this it is something holy. By the faith that it is not I alone, my Ātma principle is there too; by this Ātma being blended in, by its being the refining of the Ātma, by its being the character of the Ātma: here it has become Viśiṣṭa Advaita. This is ‘Saṅghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’. In all, too, such an Ātma is present. This is bound together through society. That is, in whatever way the ‘I’ is, whatever Ātma is in the individuality called ‘I’, that same Ātma is in all as well; and so it has come to be something that belongs, in some measure, to society too. In the Vedic tradition the ‘I’ does not belong to the body alone; it stays close to the Ātma. So, since this ‘I’ is equally present in all, it has been formed into a society. For example, ‘Who is Kasturi?’ I asked. He was there. ‘I,’ he said. ‘Who is Craxi?’ I asked. ‘I,’ he said. ‘Who is Maṇemma?’ I asked. ‘I,’ she said. Though the forms and names of Maṇemma, of Kasturi and of Craxi were different from one another, this ‘I’ was the one Ātma in them all. So the ‘I’ does not belong to the body. It does not belong to the heart. This ‘I’ belongs to the Ātma alone. These forms and names are merely physical. But since the Ātma alone is the oneness in all, they called it Viśiṣṭa Advaita. This is like the step of ‘Saṅghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’.
The third is Advaita. This is precisely ‘Dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi’. For this, in the Bible too there is all are one, that is, there is oneness in all; so true Advaita is precisely to cultivate that oneness and to give up difference.