In plain words
Embodiments of Prema! Prema itself is God. Only through the bond of Prema have you all been able to come together here. What joins thing with thing and brings person together with person is the bond of Prema itself. The whole world is filled with Prema alone. Life without Prema can only be called lifelessness.
But this Prema has three steps. The first is the very highest step. The faith that the Paramātma, the embodiment of Prema, dances within all beings. The faith ‘Īśāvāsyam idaṃ sarvaṃ’, ‘Īśvaraḥ sarvabhūtānāṃ’ is the faith of the very highest. Such beings are ‘adveṣṭā sarvabhūtānāṃ’. Making no difference between those they like and those they dislike, those close by and those far away, they experience Īśvara-hood with joy.
Next come those of the second kind. They do not care for anyone's welfare but that of themselves and their own. Still, they do not wish others any harm at all. They keep seeking their own good, their own joy, their own comfort, their own advantage.
Then come those of the third place. Even when they themselves enjoy no comfort or happiness, these people cannot bear the joy of others. All the time they go on looking for faults in others, reviling others, and standing in the way of others' comfort and happiness. Just as the cuckoo's song grates on the ears of crows, the joy of others grates on the ears of these crow-like beings. Just as cranes mock the swans they see, these people mock the happiness they see in others. They belong to the lowest place.
On every tree of life the fruit called Prema is full of sweet juice. But this fruit is covered with a skin called craving. Only when you peel off the skin called craving, throw away the seeds inside it, jealousy, envy, Ahaṅkāra and selfishness, and taste the juice of Prema, can you reach the first place, called supreme Prema.
The Upaniṣads have spoken of this supreme Prema as the very form of rasa. ‘Āpo jyotīrasaḥ amṛtaṃ brahma.’ This itself is amṛta. This itself is light. This itself is the Ātma. This itself is Brahman. Longing to attain this, people follow three kinds of Bhakti. The first is Bhautika Bhakti. The second is Ekānta Bhakti. The third is Ananya Bhakti. What goes with śravaṇa, manana and nididhyāsa; what goes with rites such as yajñas and yāgas; what goes with pilgrimage to holy places and to the sacred rivers, with kīrtana and the sixteen-fold worship; what goes with acts of charity and dharma. All of these belong to Bhautika Bhakti alone. Japa, tapas and such yajñas, vratas and the sandhyā prayers, too, all go with this Bhautika Bhakti. All of these can only be called inert. Though one may be absorbed in dhyāna and have many kinds of visions, though one may feel one has seen many kinds of divine powers, these belong only to Bhautika Bhakti. The reason is this: all that is done and all that is experienced with the body, which is transient, impermanent and unreal, and all that the Manas forgets and the Manas believes, all of it is bound up with the inert.
‘Śaryate iti śarīraḥ.’ Because these are done with the body, which wears away, their fruits too wear away. ‘Dahyate iti dehaḥ’: because these are done with the body, which burns away, they too keep turning to ash. For all that, one must not feel any aversion at all to this first place. It is needed for the first stage.
Step by step, one must attain Ekānta Bhakti. As for Ekānta Bhakti, many people take it to mean being alone with some one idol or some one form, and experiencing, praying, rejoicing and longing just as one's own heart wishes. No, no. Ekānta Bhakti is restraining the Manas and abiding in the divine experience. People think that restraining the Manas means only keeping our Manas from wandering this way and that and fixing it in one place. That is a great mistake. It is, rather, purifying the impurity and filth that have gathered in the Manas. We think restraining the Manas means fixing it in one place. But its nature is not one that stays fixed. The Manas can dissolve, but it has nothing called fixity.
Subduing saṅkalpa and vikalpa is itself Ekānta Bhakti. Humanness has been taking blows precisely through saṅkalpa and vikalpa. Here is an example of how it should be. However many trees are born, grow and perish on the earth, the earth suffers no distress of any kind. In the state of Ekānta Bhakti, the Manas stays dissolved in just such a steady condition.