Passage 1

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In plain words

The whole essence of all the Vedānta texts I shall tell you at once, in a single sentence: the Ātma that dwells in all beings and I are one; ponder this in your heart.

Longing for Mukti, man to the thirty-three crore gods keeps praying, yet his sorrows do not go. Once he gives up the ego within himself, why speak of Mukti? He himself becomes free.

Embodiments of Prema!

The Veda is nothing but the body of true utterances of the ṛṣis, the seers of the mantras. The Veda is infinite. It is fathomless. It is immeasurable. It is beyond the reach of speech and mind. Knowing that it is not possible for an ordinary man to study so infinite a Veda, and recognising that people might study the infinite Veda all their lives and still be unable to complete it, Vyāsa gradually arranged it in a few parts: he set apart all the Ṛks and called them the Ṛg Veda, set apart all the Yajus and called it the Yajur Veda, set apart all the Sāma and called it the Sāma Veda, and for these three he made three kinds of saṃhitās and three divisions, the first called the Brāhmaṇas, the second the Āraṇyakas and the third the Upaniṣads.

The Brāhmaṇas relate to the mantra. Through this mantra all the rites such as yajña and yāga, for the welfare of the world, for the welfare of society, for the welfare of human life: setting apart these Ṛks as the chief sūtras of the Ṛg Veda, they gave them the name Brāhmaṇakas. Moreover, humility and obedience show forth the chief essence of this Ṛg Veda. Then the principle of the Yajur Veda is the power to hold firm. This they have called the Āraṇyaka. Why did it come to be called the Āraṇyaka? Man, having lived as a householder, entered the forest as a vānaprastha and dedicated his time, his body and his karma too to the contemplation of God; because he meditated on God and thought of God in the forests, these came to be called the Āraṇyakas.