In plain words
What sees is not the eye. What hears is not the ears. This has, besides, a principle of Manas joined to a real life-breath. Hence ‘This world is made of Manas’: without the Manas we cannot even recognise humanness, nor express it. The Manas itself enters the eye and is able to see. The Manas itself enters the ears and works to make them hear. So in every matter the Manas alone is the support of everything. ‘For men, the Manas alone is the cause of bondage and liberation.’ Vēmana too said it in simple words: ‘Everything lies in the one Manas alone; why should man go wandering about, crazed?’ Man's divinity, in truth, rests in the Manas itself. When the consciousness of this Prakṛti is reflected only in what is physical, this principle of Manas becomes deformed. When it joins with Ahaṅkāra, it too becomes deformed. When it shows forth the principle of the Ātma, this same principle becomes well formed. It becomes clear to us that the root cause of the well formed and the deformed is the Manas, the Manas itself. Even in our moments of agitation we undergo many kinds of degradation, and we commit them. When we spend our life with Śānti, with Prema, with forbearance, we show forth humanness. So humanness, animality and the demonic all lie in one and the same man. So only when we develop the principle of the Ātma, which is divinity, does humanness become lasting.
To attain this humanness we must also do certain kinds of sādhana. ‘By practice, tasks are accomplished on earth.’ We think of this as the age of modern civilisation. What is its purpose? What is its inner meaning? Is increasing one's desires the mark of civilisation? No, no. Keeping one's longings, desires and ambitions in check through humanness: that is the true meaning of modernity. But this man, through desires that pass all bounds, has a mind and yet goes mad. He brings the loss of his reason on himself. If these desires grow greater still: selfishness, selfishness, selfishness. All are God's children, every one. The day we experience human brotherhood and God's fatherhood, practise it and share it with others too, that is true character.
But today we have built a temple. For what purpose did we build it? Why did we build it? What is this worship? Worship of the formless is surely the highest! Why spend so much money and build these temples? As long as the delusion that one is the body remains, worship of an image cannot be avoided. The day you rid yourself of the delusion that you are the body, the day you give up the ‘Satya’ ‘I am the body’, that day alone does worship, does image worship, cease to be the right path. Until then, though, you cannot do without it. But this takes no great labour. ‘The body is called a temple; the jīva is the eternal God.’ Yet today, in this modern age, people look on the spiritual path as a mere joke. They disregard it. False propaganda, too, goes about in many ways that this is not the right path. This is a great mistake.
Trust, trust. ‘Lacking the two eyes called trust, they are going blind on earth.’