In plain words
If, like birds, beasts and animals, we roam about and about, enjoy ourselves and waste our time somehow, how then does this human birth become something rare? We are just the same as birds, beasts and animals. No, no. We must use all the limbs given to man in work done to please God.
Yajña. What does yajña mean? Whatever work one does, all that is done to please God is yajña. The form of this is the very symbol of that yajña. So whatever small work we do to please God turns into the very form of yajña. Sacrifice itself is yajña. Yajña is not merely this: building a big fire-pit, bringing cow's ghee with … mantras, and performing it in this manner. However small the work, when it is done to please God it turns into yajña. That is why the Upaniṣads too told us: whatever karma you begin, salute that karma. Tasmai namaḥ karmaṇe. To the karma I perform, I first of all offer salutation. This is precisely the practice done with the intention: ‘I must perform them as sacred karmas.’ Why does man today take on a body? Karmānubandhīni manuṣyaloke. The body has come only according to our karmas. So karma is the basis of the body. Rāga is the basis of this karma. Dvēṣa is the basis of rāga. Ahaṅkāra is the basis of dvēṣa. The want of Viveka is the basis of Ahaṅkāra. Ajñāna is the root cause of this want of Viveka. So if we destroy Ajñāna, this want of Viveka wastes away. When this want of Viveka perishes, darkness is wiped out. When this Ahaṅkāra is wiped out, dvēṣa falls away. When this dvēṣa goes, rāga wastes away. When rāga wastes away, the karmas themselves perish. When karma has perished, we have no body at all. So when we want this body to fulfil its purpose, first of all we must wipe out Ajñāna. What does Ajñāna mean? To think that I am the body: that is the great Ajñāna. This Ajñāna that says this body is I must be wiped out first of all. How is it wiped out? We must regard even that as God. All is the form of God. We must foster the faith that all is the power of God.
You said, ‘My body, my body.’ What is this ‘my’ that stands before this body? Here, ‘mine’ itself is a Mamakāra. ‘I’ itself is Ahaṅkāra. Where do these, ‘mine’ and ‘I’, come from? All is God's alone. The other day, when I went to the hostel, I told the children. After the forest exile, when He had come back, many ṛṣis all described Śrī Rāmacandra: ‘Rāmo vigrahavān dharmaḥ; You are the very embodiment of Dharma, You are the very embodiment of God.’ Kaikeyī, who recognised this truth, watched for a time when He was alone, went to Rāma: ‘Rāma!