In plain words
Loss too shows us a kind of gain. So loss too is good. ‘Happiness is not gained from happiness,’ it has been said. Happiness lies right between two hardships. Really, if there were no hardship at all, we would not understand the divinity of happiness. If there were no death at all, not even a mother would love her child. In the same way, if there were no darkness at all, we would give this lamp no value at all. In the same way, only because there is hardship, because there is sorrow, because there is grief, do we long for happiness, Ānanda and Śānti. This unrest itself has shown us the way to seek this Śānti.
So if we think, ‘Unrest must go, Śānti must come,’ what must we do? Only when we go to a shop and hand over ten rupees do we get an article. Only when we give up one thing are we able to gain another. In just the same way, if we want Śānti, we must give up unrest. If we want evenness, we must give up unevenness. If we want happiness, we must give up sorrow. That is why: ‘Not by action, not by offspring, not by wealth; by sacrifice alone did some attain immortality.’ Only through this sacrifice does true Ānanda come to us. Sacrifice itself is our yoga. Sacrifice itself is our all. But such a man sets out on no sacrifice at all. The nature of one who has made sacrifice attains the perfection of yoga. In such perfection of yoga we gain the Ānanda of the Ātma as well. So, whatever power there may be, before we leave this life we must set out to do good deeds, gifts, charity and all such, and, causing no trouble of any kind to our neighbours, to do them good as far as your strength allows.
That is why Vyāsa too said it. He said he would tell the essence of the eighteen Purāṇas in two words. ‘What is in the eighteen Purāṇas I shall tell in two words: doing good to others is merit, hurting others is sin.’ One is doing good to others. The other is doing no harm. But we must think of doing no harm as itself a great good. You may not have the strength to do good. So only when we come to know God's vast divine vision and move among all, seeing divinity dwell in all: ‘I am One; may I become many.’ As the Bhagavad Gītā says, ‘Me, the seed of all beings.’ When we sow a seed, it sprouts into a seedling, grows into a tree, and appears in it as a cosmic form: many flowers, green fruits, ripe fruits, branches, twigs and leaves. What is the cause of all these? The one seed alone. In this tree called the cosmos there are kinships, which are the branches. All our relations are branches. All living beings are simply its fruits. In each one of these fruits there is a seed again. So in all beings God alone is the One. There may be any number of religions.
All religions together have taught only the good; know this, and move among men with discernment; if minds are good, which religion is bad?