In plain words
Only when the delusion goes does Brahman come and join us. I said this on Guru Pūrṇimā day the other day too. In the ocean waves keep rising. What is the cause of these waves? The cause of these waves is water. What is the cause of this water turning into a wave? For that, the pressure of the air. It is by the pressure of this air that the water turns into a wave. What is Māyā here, and what is Brahman? The water itself is Brahman. The air itself is Māyā. This wave itself is the jīva. This wave called the jīva came from this Brahman itself. It came by the pressure of the air called Māyā. If we look at this rightly, air means gas. So they say. What does this gas mean? Plain falsehood. "He's thrown it, the fellow's thrown gas," we say, meaning a lie. People in Madras understand that word gas very well. "Throw it, throw it, gas bottle," they say. They mean he is telling lies. You know the soda bottle. When you strike it, the gas comes out. That is, when that ball goes inside, gas comes. That is, by the pressure of this gas it comes out like a fine vapour. You drink it and find satisfaction in this very gas. Air alone is the support of this whole world. Today cooking itself is done with gas. Everything is with gas. The cause of birth itself is gas. That itself is Māyā. By the touch of that air called Māyā on this water called Brahman, it becomes the wave called the jīva. So Māyā, Brahman and the jīva, the three are one. How did this principle of the jīva begin? It began through this very Māyā. That is why they said, "The jīva has Māyā as its vehicle."
Then how must we know this Māyā? It is nothing but our own delusion. We must recognise it as Imagination. It is subject to God. So if we recognise the grace of the Paramātma, or the divine form of the Paramātma, or our own true nature, Māyā comes under our control. If we recognise the principle of God, Māyā goes of its own accord. When a lamp is lit, darkness does not stay there, does it! This is what ‘tamaso mā jyotir gamaya’ means. The jīva is one who came from Brahman. We must strengthen the faith, "Through the pressure called Māyā I have become a jīva, but I am Brahman itself." We must make our vision broad. We must fill our heart with Prema. In both these we must put away our Ahaṅkāra and our sense of mine. That is why in the Gītā, ‘nirmamo nirahaṅkāraḥ’: he said, "Friend, put away your attachment and your Ahaṅkāra." As long as this sense of mine and this Ahaṅkāra are there, man cannot recognise the truth. Only when we put these two away can he see his own true form. This whole world appears as nothing but illusion. What is in all things is oneness itself; that is the truth. There is a seed. We put that seed in the earth. From the earth a sprout came. The sprout became a tree. In the tree many branches and sub-branches spread out. In that very tree flowers and green fruit blossomed.