In plain words
Before the Praṇava came “I”. Before all saṅkalpas, the saṅkalpa “I” arose first of all. When one recognises “I” as “I”, one becomes one who has recognised all. How? That “I” itself is everywhere. I shall ask a question. Who is the Vice Chancellor? Sharaf says, “I”. “Who is Chakravarthi?” I say. He says, “I”. “Who is Bairagi Sastri?” I say; “I”, he says. Sharaf's name and form, feelings and views are different. Chakravarthi's name and form, feelings and views are different. Bairagi Sastri's name and form, feelings and views are different. Even so, to my question “I” came from all three as one and the same. I is everywhere. Country, time and circumstance may differ, feelings of the mind may differ, states and fortunes may differ, but in all of them “I” stays the same. People keep changing only their delusions.
A small example. When a man is a householder, that is, when he lives with his family, he thinks, “I am a householder.” When some hardship or loss, some pain or sorrow comes upon him, he gives up family life, goes to Ṛṣīkeśa and takes sannyāsa. There he says, “I am a sannyāsī.” Thinking “householder” and thinking “sannyāsī” are both only his delusions. But his state changed. His course did not change. Here he said, “I am a householder.” There he said, “I am a sannyāsī.” In the householder there is “I”. In the sannyāsī there is “I”. “I” did not change. “Householder” and “sannyāsī” are only costumes we have put on this “I”. In the same way, “I am a brahmacārī”, “I am a householder”, “I am a vānaprastha”, “I am a sannyāsī”: all these are costumes one puts on. What is the same in the brahmacārī, the householder, the vānaprastha and the sannyāsī is “I”. I am the boy, I am the youth, I am the old man, I am all. “I” is in all forms; so the right sādhana is to give up those different states and see the principle of what truly is in the form of the Ātma.
As long as the mind remains, man remains with pleasure and pain. What rises and what sets, what joins and what parts, what comes and what goes is the “aham”, not the Ātma. This aham, joined with form, turns into Ahaṅkāra. Aham means “I” itself. Only when one gives up form can one be oneself; as long as one takes on form, one cannot be oneself. The true form of the Ātma is “I”; because it is joined with form, aham + ākāram = Ahaṅkāram has come about. There must be no Ahaṅkāra. As many dangers as befall a man who walks off the road, so many insults befall a man who walks off the path of morality. That morality is the human race. That race is the race bound to the Ātma. It alone is joined with divinity. Forgetting such divinity, we are sinking into physical names and forms that are unsteady, impermanent and give no happiness. So every man must gradually come to see what is called the nature of Manas as a form of Māyā.