In plain words
It goes only crooked. The snake goes on biting whatever it catches. These people are just the same. Whatever comes their way, they take as hostility. To this vikāra Manas we must bring the sakāra Manas. The Manas keeps going after something or other. Desires keep growing. As the hair greys, as the teeth fall out, as the eyesight dims, we keep longing to enjoy something or other, more and more. What have we gulped down all this while? What is left to gulp down from now on? So there is one thing alone we should long for. We were born as human beings. As human beings we must live and conduct ourselves. As human beings we must die. To be born human and die a beast is not good. What makes us recognise this Satya is the true Manas. I am a human being. I am not one who merely carries some kind of beastliness. Hardness is not the nature of man. Cruelty is the mark of a beast. Envy is the mark of a beast. Self-interest there must be, but self-interest beyond all bounds is the mark of a beast. Ahaṅkāra and ingratitude are the marks of a beast. To cultivate traits like these and think ourselves human makes no sense at all.
Cooperation and compassion. We must see with these two as our eyes. We should not build up needless ties of kinship with those we meet pleasantly for today, tomorrow, a mere three days. We must build up our kinship with the divinity that lives together with us today, tomorrow, the day after and all through life. The Divine is not in some place outside. It is within oneself. The embodiment of the Trimūrti is oneself; the one enjoyed in the three times is oneself. The three-eyed one is oneself. If we keep every trait of a beast and still say, ‘Among living beings a human birth is hard to attain,’ what is gained?
Embodiments of Prema! Where is it that we stand? Each one gets only as much as is his lot. Whatever you do for others, or give them, that alone comes to you. However near, however close you may be, you get only as much as is your lot. Ticks gather on the cow's udder more than anywhere. But these ticks drink only blood; they do not drink the milk. The calf drinks only milk. But it does not drink the blood. We must be calves, God's children, not ticks. Merely being near is of no use at all. We must be dear, too.
Today our Bhārata is as the saying goes: ‘Each to his own on the bank of the Yamunā.’ The five fingers of a hand have no bond with one another. When four people live in a house, they go four separate ways. There is no togetherness at all. How much joy there is in togetherness! When the five fingers join, how much work they can do! Can we eat a meal with one finger? When the five fingers join, the stomach is full in five minutes. When ten people join together, the work is done in ten minutes. One man alone could not do it even in ten years. It has been said, ‘Stay together, and there is Mokṣa.’
In our Bhārata there are seventy crores of people. If within these seventy crores we go on adding I+you+you+you++++, we can achieve any task however great. We can enjoy any joy however great. Now we are not doing so. Father-son, husband-wife, guruji-sishya: because we have put minuses between them all, it is all becoming mindless. What we must learn now is this: first God, next world, last I... I means ego. But, unfortunately, how things stand is: first I, next world, last God. In this state, however many Navarātris and however many kinds of programmes we celebrate, we cannot move forward even an inch. In the villages at Muharram people dance, crying ‘Hassan, Hussain, Hassan Hussain’. They stay right where they are. They do not move on. We dance forward and back, but we do not go even an inch. In the hour of sādhana we go forward, and the moment we go out we go back again; in this way we keep going forward and back. That is, however much becomes plus, just as much becomes minus.
To know divinity, to experience it, the elders said first of all, ‘Know yourself.’ That does not mean knowing how many legs, hands, eyes and noses there are. Who am I? I am divinity. I have taken on this body only as an instrument. We must recognise the Satya that all the powers, all the feelings, all the resolves in this body come only by the prompting of God.
Embodiments of the divine Ātma! Above all, for many years now we have been practising sādhana. We are singing bhajans. But we cannot reach the level we hoped for. Whatever we do, whatever we give, we must do it from the heart. If you rest on what you like, it becomes selfishness. We must follow the will of God. We must resolve, ‘God's will alone is our will,’ and carry out our duty. Here is a seed. We put that seed in the soil. We added manure. We poured water. We saw to it that air reached it well. After some days, what became of it? It turned into a plant. Where did we put it? In the soil. Did that seed become soil? We added manure. Did the seed become manure? We poured water. Did the seed become water?