In plain words
Languages may differ. Doctrines may differ. Practices may differ. Humanness, which is divinity, remains one. In this Manas, too, through food, pastimes and the like, the sāttvic, the rājasic and the tāmasic may arise. We earn. For whom are we earning? Not the least bit of our earnings comes with us. What does not come with us, what is not ours: whose property is it? Whose property, who knows! Why should we wear ourselves out so much for such a thing?
To fill a belly a span wide you suffer troubles; a crore of arts you take up, O fish-eyed one, and still gain no perfect happiness: why should this human race live on divided? The devotee who meditates on the glorious Supreme: will poverty not quit him and go, O man!
For what are we doing it? For whose sake do we do this work? Money, money: ‘This world has money at its root.’ Without money we cannot live even a moment. Money we certainly need. Just so much, and no more. What does money achieve for us? It gives comfort, but it does not bring Śānti. It brings servants, but it does not bring friends. This money brings only food; it does not bring loving care. This money brings only medicines; it does not cure diseases. So the true wealth, the wealth that lies in divinity, is the wealth of Jñāna.
Man is happy only when he gives up what is to be given up. He is happy only when he attains the means he is to attain. So what is to be given up? What is to be known? What is to be reached? We must give up the feeling that this is a world. We must know that everything is God. We must reach the principle of the Ātma, which is ours to reach. Instead, staying just where we are, without knowing what we ought to know, we keep thinking, ‘I am a man, this is my hand, this is my leg, my Buddhi, my citta, my form, my senses.’ We go on without understanding ‘Who are you?’ When I say ‘my body’, there is surely some particular opposition between me and this body! So I have no connection of any kind with this body. We say ‘my body’, but we do not say ‘the body is I’. If we understand even small matters like these, the greatest thing in man, in truth, is Prema alone! Through this Prema we can achieve anything at all. We can enjoy joys of every kind. We must bring to this Prema the thing called unity. Unity itself is the wall that holds up life. This common effort in society is itself the support of everything. Service to society, which is our support, and this precious unity: both of these we are forgetting.
We must recognise how close the bond is between karma and karma yoga. All that is done with Ahaṅkāra and attachment remains mere karma. All karma free of Ahaṅkāra and attachment turns into yoga. So our life must become yoga; it must not become a disease. Today we are wearing out our whole life with diseases alone.