In plain words
This is what Vedānta speaks of: ‘Neti, neti, neti. I am not the body, I am not the Manas, I am not the citta, I am not the antaḥkaraṇa; I am I!’ So it said. We must understand this truth. What we desire is one thing, what we do is another. To win what we desire, we must take up fitting sādhanas, fitting practices.
If you call and ask, will the sugarcane give you jaggery, unless you crush it to pulp and draw out the juice!
Only when we crush the sugarcane to pulp does the juice come; if we say, ‘O sugarcane! Give me juice,’ will it give? It will never give.
We must strive to cultivate an evenness that neither sinks nor swells
Our body is a sugarcane. In it lies the juice called consciousness. Putting it to every kind of labour, we must first gain the strength and power to endure and bear hardships, losses, sorrows, griefs, blame and reproach too. But we are not in that state. If anyone describes us as ‘Indra, Surendra, Parendra’, we put on thirty pounds in weight. So much do we swell up. If someone says, ‘You are wicked, a sinner, this sort of person, that sort of person,’ we sink. But we must make a fitting effort to experience this evenness that neither sinks nor swells. We should think, ‘Because someone praises me or reviles me, what have I gained, what have I lost?’ ‘Nothing has been added to me, nothing has melted away, nothing has been lessened. Even if someone praises me, I do not grow. What is mine is mine! My nature is my own! My Satya is my own!’ So we must firmly resolve. When does fear begin for us? Only when there is no Satya in us, only when there is sin in us, only when there is a fault in us, does fear arise in us. At a time when there is no such defect, whatever comes, we need not fear. We must acquire such strength of intellect. We must develop such strength of the Ātma. ‘Nāyamātma balahīnena labhyaḥ,’ they said.