In plain words
Full of splendour, full of radiance, beyond the darkness called ignorance: this great Person is the very one. They have proclaimed that on the day ignorance and darkness are scattered in man, on that very day he can attain this sacred light, the light of the Ātma, the infinite light, the light without a second. But where did these maharṣis see it? Did they see it in the outer world? No. No. Examining the five sheaths and inquiring into the five prāṇas, they came to recognise this principle of divine radiance in man in their own hearts.
They recognised that to those who love God, God is nearer than anything. To those without love for God He has appeared as one even farther away than the farthest distance. A ruby is found in the earth, not in a tree. But how will this ruby come to a man who tries to search in a tree for the ruby he should look for in the earth? The earth is made of sound, touch, form, taste and smell. That same earth, water, fire, air and ether: of these this world is made. Man’s body too is made of earth, water, fire and air, and of the sound that is ether. So we must search for this divine ruby, this divine consciousness, in this very body of clay. So those ṛṣis recognised the truth of where God, whose form is consciousness, is: He is in the body of clay itself.
‘Mamaivāṃśo jīvalokē jīvabhūta sanātanaḥ,’ He said. ‘Mamaivāṃśo,’ He said. Not a part of the senses, not a part of the mind, not a part of Prakṛti. Not even a part of the jīva. Mamaivāṃśo. My own part. ‘My own part itself, in very truth, shines resplendent in this man, in the heart,’ He said. The maharṣis who recognised this truth have from that day said of this body, ‘Dēhō dēvālayaprōktō jīvō dēvaḥsanātanaḥ.’ That is, they concluded that the eternal God shines in the form of the jīva in this new body. The body is not something merely ordinary. It is a great mansion for the God who is the Ātma. This itself is the great temple. Dēhō dēvālayaḥ: it is like a temple. But there are certain rules for having the darśan of the God who dwells in this temple. There are certain paths too. In the world, at the main gate of great mansions, of officials’ houses and of kings’ palaces, a watchman stands guard. When guards keep watch in this way at the houses of ordinary officials, of the wealthy and of kings, should there be no guards at the mansion of this God, the highest of all, the leader of the whole world, who holds the whole of creation, the microcosm and the macrocosm, in His hand? To see that God who is the Ātma, to enter this temple called the body, there are four gates.