In plain words
On just this the Telugus have a proverb. “Rather than chasing and striking a lame fox, strike the tiger itself, even if you miss the mark,” they said. So, rather than taking so much trouble and falling into so many difficulties over these little things, set your aim on the true Ātma-principle. Even if you fail in that, it does not matter. We will be the very ones who have won. If we win in that one thing, all the other victories follow us of their own accord. If we keep on failing, all the time, over what is impermanent and worldly, we sink in failure itself. We cannot take a single step forward towards victory.
Every man must develop the feeling, “I am the Ātma, I am the Ātma.” But: “I am Brahma.” When one thinks “I am Brahma”, there is one thing, “I”, before this Brahma. Here too there is “I”. Who is that “I”? Even in thinking “I am Brahma” we must understand what “I” is. Its meaning is: Brahma is spreading. “I” goes with spreading. That is why we come to understand the principle that what is everywhere is “I” itself. Only when all one does, all one says, all one thinks is joined with the feeling of God does one become one who has recognised the true I. This world is there only as long as delusion about the body is there. We are experiencing this every day of our lives. We are in sleep. In sleep we see no things. We touch no object; we eat no food. In a time that is still, with nothing at all, we experience Ānanda. In that deep sleep, nothing appears to you there: no body, no form, no feeling, no quality. Only you are there. In waking, dream and deep sleep you are there. In the gross, subtle and causal bodies too there is what is called “you”. What does not change in all of these is the Ātma-principle. Vedānta has always described this very thing as “nirguṇaṃ, nirañjanaṃ, sanātanaṃ, niketanaṃ, nityaśuddhabuddhamuktanirmalasvarūpaṃ”.
The body that does dhyāna or japa is a water bubble. The mind that moves relying on it, when we look, is a mad monkey. Through this mad monkey, through this body like a water bubble, can you reach the eternal Ātma? This is only a passing satisfaction; it is not the true Ānanda of the Ātma. This body is like a drop of water at the tip of a leaf of a tree. Who knows in what moment this drop of water will fall! How can there be any chance of reaching the eternal Ātma with something like this? Doing bhajans, doing dhyāna, doing pūjās are only devices to check this mind for a while; they are not the true paths. But one thing alone is eternal. Making this enquiry, “Who am I, who am I?”, we must go and reach the place where that “I” begins. “This is my body. This is my Manas, this is my Buddhi, this is my citta, my senses, my antaḥkaraṇa”: you must go on asking yourself, “Who am I?”