In plain words
But he laid down one condition: when they brought them back to him, the goats must not eat leaves. He also announced that he would give ten thousand rupees as a prize to whoever raised a goat in that way. Thinking, ‘If we feed it well, how will it eat leaves after that?’, they all began to feed theirs well. One girl alone would put leaves before her goat and, just as it was about to graze, strike it on the mouth. That goat gave up even looking towards any of the leaves. One day the king ordered everyone to bring their goats. Everyone's goats were eating the leaves the moment they saw them. One goat alone did not look towards the leaves; it was looking only at the stick in its owner's hand. The king gave the girl who had raised that goat ten thousand rupees as the prize. To restrain the mind, we have to practise in just this way. Even one as great as Arjuna prayed, ‘Cañcalaṃ hi manaḥ kṛṣṇa pramādi balavaddṛḍham’, asking how he was to restrain a Manas so very strong. It runs off wherever it pleases. It has no road and no course at all. Even a monkey jumps only from one tree to another tree. But the mind reaches from one world to another in a moment.
A king, it seems, arranged a great exhibition. What was special about that exhibition was that anyone could freely take away whatever they liked. Everyone came and was taking away whatever pleased them. One girl alone was going back with empty hands. The king asked her, ‘Is there not even one thing in my exhibition that you like? Have you no desire for anything at all?’ ‘The exhibition is truly wonderful. It is not that I have no desire. But if one desires one thing, desire does not stop there; desires keep growing without end. If, instead of becoming the slave of desire, I conquer desire, desires themselves come under our control,’ said the girl. Moved by the girl's words, the king said, ‘Ask for whatever you want; I will give it.’ ‘Will you surely give it?’ she asked. The king gave his word that he would surely give it. ‘It is you I want,’ she said. True to the word he had given, the king took the girl as his queen. That whole great exhibition and all the things in it became hers. Creation, most wonderful of all, is this exhibition. Each takes whatever they like. Saying, ‘King, I need nothing; whoever created all these, it is He I want,’ that girl, Vairāgya in human form, made God Himself her own.
Those who catch fish cast a net in the river. If the fish go towards the net, they are caught in it. If they come towards the ones who cast the net, they escape it. This very world is Māyā, the net. Those who go towards it are bound in it. If they walk towards the feet of the One who created that Māyā, release is theirs.
Aśvatthāma went up to Duryodhana, who lay at his end, told him, ‘Before your life leaves you, I will bring the heads of the Pāṇḍavas and give you peace,’ and set out from there. The Pāṇḍavas were not to be caught. Poor little ones, Draupadī's sons, small children: he cut the throats of those sleeping Upapāṇḍavas, brought them back and showed them to him.