In plain words
But in protecting human values they are not stepping in at all. We must protect these human values. That is our chief duty. If, without protecting that, we go on protecting our houses and homes and bank balance, how long will they stay with us? Is even one of them coming with us? How can what does not come with us be ours? What a mistake to think that what is not ours is ours! Nothing is ours. What comes with us, what lives with us, what honours us, what dishonours us, what takes us to the heights or pushes us to the depths: these are our values alone.
So first of all, with the thought, “I am a man; I must nourish those human values, the values called Satya, Dharma, Śānti, Prema and Ahiṃsā,” dedicate your whole life to it. That is the fulfilment of your being born. If we give up selfishness, we can well attain this good beyond the self. Selfishness is the root cause of all these bonds. We think that man's attachments and hatreds bind him. They are not what binds us. Selfishness has become the root cause of all these bonds. This selfishness must go. Every now and then I say it: “Fish is better than selfish.” That fish moves about in the water, eats up the dirt in the water and makes the water clean. But this selfishman moves about in society and makes society dirty. He pollutes it. So only when we give up selfishness do we become people who have nourished our sacred qualities. If selfishness goes entirely, that will not do either. But it needs a limit. If he crosses the limit, he turns into an ox. So we must use it only as far as we need it. Above all, what we must develop is our qualities.
Embodiments of Prema! Above all, we must try to put such conduct into practice, at least one or two, as far as we can. Whenever I address you, I say, “Embodiments of Prema.” I do not say, “Embodiments of man.” Because Prema is your true form; outer form is not your true form. Form? It is always changing. It is inert, not the very form of consciousness. “When I was born I was only this big. Now I have grown so big; how can I be inert? I am the very form of consciousness,” you may think. You are not the very form of consciousness just because you have grown. If every day you sweep the house and throw so much rubbish into a pit, in a year it grows into a big heap.