In plain words
We keep making our Prema of today narrow. We set up ‘I and my own’ as its boundary. Crossing this limit, we must recognise the truth that the divinity in humanness, many as it is, is one, and love everyone. The Prema that is in everyone, more or less, is one; it is this that the Upaniṣads called ‘subtler than the subtlest, greater than the greatest’.
Subtler than the subtle atom, greater than the great thing, witness of all and shining everywhere: the Ātma is Brahman, and Brahman is the Ātma.
Prakṛti goes on doing its own duty by its very nature. No one else can uplift it, destroy it or spur it on. This is the nature of Prakṛti. This is the principle of the Ātma, immortal, which neither grows nor wanes. Awakening Prakṛti to this supreme principle, it has gone on creating certain kinds of guṇas for it. They are the guṇas sattva, rajas and tamas. If these guṇas are to spread through Prakṛti, certain upādhis are essential to it. Those very upādhis it has gone on … under the names Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara. Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara are not merely beings with bodies. These are nothing but embodiments of the upādhis of the guṇas. The divine forms that have taken the shape of such guṇas are this Brahmā-principle, Īśvara-principle and Viṣṇu-principle. So the Purāṇas, saying that the Brahmā-principle means some kind of four-faced being who creates the whole world, have been … us on a wrong path. No. No: these three forms are the forms of our own guṇas. There are five powers of Prakṛti. Earth, water, fire, air and space. But when we set out to regard them in the order of creation, they fall into words in the opposite order. Space, wind, fire, water, earth. It runs the other way round. Prakṛti has shown us the order of creation in one way, and the order of experience alone in another. In the same way, when we turn these upādhis that belonged to the experience called Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara into the order of creation, it took the form Īśvara, Viṣṇu, Brahmā.
Here, what does Īśvara-hood mean? ‘Īśvara of all beings,’ the Gītā said. … Īśvara means the one whose name is Lord of the heart. He is the one who makes the hearts of all shine. So in every heart there is the divine power called Īśvara-hood. This very heart all the Śrutis have called the Ātma. From this heart Manas has come forth. That this Manas itself is Viṣṇu-hood. Viṣṇu means the one who pervades all: that is its meaning.