In plain words
First of all every man must recognise the principle, “Who am I, who am I, I?” I am everywhere. I am the form of all. I am the Ātma.
The Ātma is itself the heart. The heart and the Ātma are not separate. To try to recognise this place called “I” and its existence is our sādhana. Every man enters some unknown path, falls through it into confusions of many kinds and, to some extent, forgets the true spiritual path. Every sādhana we do today we do only with a dualist outlook. If we stay in dvaita for ever, our life is a waste. Step by step we must go on changing our sight. We must understand the truth that the whole principle of creation is our own imagining. Only while our sight is there is our creation there. Only as long as our eye is there does the śāstra rule us. So we must recognise the truth, “Viśvaṃ Viṣṇusvarūpaṃ”. We practise sādhanas in many ways. We do bhajans. We do japas. We do pūjās. We do yajñas. We do yāgas. The Bhagavad Gītā, in the eleventh chapter, from the forty-eighth to the fifty-second śloka, has taught clearly: “I am not one to be won by any of these.” “I am not caught by yajñas. I am not won over by yāgas. I am not gained by japa and dhyāna.” But this is not telling you to give all these up. How far do we need them? The man who is in the dualist outlook needs them.
All who believe in the Gītā must recognise this matter well. It taught, “Anityam asukhaṃ lokam”. In such a world, impermanent and without happiness, how can we gain happiness and Śānti that are eternal and true? There is in us a principle that is eternal and true. Through that we must gain eternity. That is the Ātma-principle. However vast and deep the ocean is, that ocean too keeps the precious pearls within itself and throws out the worthless snail shells. That is why they compared the sea to worldly life. They said, “Saṃsāra is an ocean.” Our worldly life too must be like that. We must keep the precious Ātma-principle safe and try to cast off these worthless feelings, these forms, these names. If we go on living for ever in delusions about the body, for ever as forms of the body, when will we ever experience the true principle that is beyond the body, beyond form, beyond feeling? That is not to say: give all this up. While you carry out your own duty, you must keep the Ātma-principle as your aim. The doer is the Ātma. The one who causes the doing is the Ātma. The one who experiences is the Ātma. When we develop the broad feeling that all is the Ātma, step by step it brings us to that broad principle. Even if it is hard for us to reach, we must set the aim. Only when a high aim is in us can we reach that goal, if not today, then some day.