In plain words
For this I often give a good illustration. This is my body. This is my body, but I am not the body. This body is separate from me. This is my Kerchief. The Kerchief is separate; I am separate. In the same way, when you think ‘the body’, the body is separate and you are separate. When you think ‘my Manas’, Manas is separate and you are separate. Inquiring in this way, at the very last: who am I? Who am I? To know, ‘I am I.’ This itself is ‘Ahaṃ brahmāsmi’.
In dhyāna there are three places. Dhyāta, dhyāna, dhyeya. The dhyāta, the sādhaka who does it: what is he doing? He is doing dhyāna. The work he does. On whom is he meditating? Here they are three. I am meditating on God. Here I, the dhyāna and God are three. These three must become one. While meditating, we must not think, ‘I am meditating.’ We must forget dhyāna itself. We must forget even what we are doing. This dhyāna and the dhyāta, both, must become one in the dhyeya. This is what they called the Kūṭastha. In the sea there is water. From the water came waves. From the waves came foam. Foam, waves, water. But here it is not that the foam is one thing, the water another and the waves another. As long as your vision is merely unsteady, these three have appeared separate. But look as the inner Ātma, and the water in all three is one and the same! So the doer, that is, the dhyāta, the dhyāna and the dhyeya: in all three there must be the one alone, merged into one. Only then does Ānanda arise in us. That is Brahmānanda, this is Nityānanda, this is Paramānanda, this is Yogānanda, this is Advaitānanda; such Ānanda arises from oneself alone. There is a fan you use in daily life. Inside this fan there are three blades. If these three blades keep turning in three directions, we get no breeze at all. When we switch it on, the three blades turn as one. When they become one, then a cool breeze blows on us. In just the same way, inside the room called the heart, dhyāta, dhyeya and dhyāna, these three, are like a fan with three blades.