In plain words
The King of Tañjāvūr sent wealth, gold, goods, carriages and the rest, all of it, to his house. ‘Is wealth the greater happiness? Is Rāma’s presence the greater happiness? Tell me truly, O mind,’ he asked his own mind. The presence of Īśvara is the true presence for me. It is the true happiness for me. How long will this wealth last? All of it is clouds drifting away. Passing clouds. Comes and goes. They come and go. With the conviction “These are not what matters to me,” he gave them up. That is why the name Tyāgarāja came true for him. He was a very king in tyāga. Today, when anyone sees money, however rich he may be, even a man worth crores, if he sees a very dirty rupee note, he picks it up and puts it in his pocket. But he does not leave it there and go. Today there is no one who does not desire money. But Tyāgarāja, who was very poor, gave up all riches. That is Tyāgarāja. People take the name Saundaryarājan. Look at the man, and he is ugly. If we take the name Satya, we must speak Satya. If you take the name Śāntamma, you must be calm. You must not keep your anger on the tip of your nose and try to quarrel with everyone. The conduct fitting the name must be right and good.
What we have are the five sheaths. The annamaya is this body. The prāṇamaya is movement. That is, it is the form of consciousness. The manomaya is the gathering of feelings. The vijñānamaya is the power of inquiry. Only after this comes the ānandamaya. When do we gain this ānandamaya! Beginning with the annamaya, we must journey up to the ānandamaya. Until then we must not stop. But today our journey begins with the annamaya and ends with the annamaya itself. That is not the goal of our life. Born as human beings, and having had it said of us, ‘Jantūnāṃ narajanma durlabham’, we live not like human beings but like beasts. ‘I am a human being’ is a half truth. That is only half the truth. ‘I am not a beast’: this is half the truth. Only when these two are joined does it become the full truth. So we must inquire in this way: ‘I am a human being, not a beast.’ If, thinking we are human, we sink back into the conduct of beasts, what fulfilment is there for humanness? I must not enter into beastliness. I must not hurt others in the least. I must not harm them. I must not do them violence. If such a Dharma of Ahiṃsā is to arise in us, we must follow three things, only three. I have said this many times. We must develop humanness.
A man without humanness is a man only in form. In such a humanness of mere form, the power to attract comes to nothing. This is a real rose. We need not call any bee to this rose. It comes by itself and settles on it. But will a bee come and settle on a plastic flower that looks like a rose? It will not. Why? There is no nectar there.