In plain words
Ready for sacrifice, it sets itself to experience Ānanda. Is there not water to drink in ever so many rivers? Is there not water in ever so many lakes? Is there not water in ever so many wells? But it will not consent at all to drink that water. It longs only for the sacred drop of rain. In the same way, whatever favourable things, pleasures, comforts and conveniences there may be, we must disregard them, regard the presence of God alone as the treasure, and keep that alone before us as the chief aim. However many difficulties come, we must set about sacrifice without counting them.
Do you alone need Śānti?
Desires too are very strange. One small example. Think how selfish a desire it is: ‘I want Śānti of mind.’ Whatever fate befalls the world, what is that to me! When one says, ‘I want my Śānti,’ how selfish is that? When the home itself is not at peace, how will you get Śānti? How is it possible for you alone to be in Śānti? Your Śānti depends on your family, on your society, on your world. If the world, society and home are at peace, you have Śānti. We know only how to ask; what way we must follow for it goes unknown. Even to love himself, man cannot do without loving others. Only one who can love others can love himself. Unless one loves others, Prema for oneself is not born. A man who wants to win victory in battle must have someone else to fight against him, must he not! When he has not fought at all, how does he come by the right to say that he won the battle!
Many people make certain efforts to learn where water lies and the nature of the ground. To dig a well, they make sure there is no pit of dirty water anywhere around. The reason is that that very water seeps into the well. In Madras or in Bombay, or in any other place near the sea, if one digs a well only salt water comes up, never sweet water.