In plain words
I could not recognise Your strength and abilities. Teach me some atonement for the sin I committed,’ she said. ‘Mother, what you did is no sin at all. It is only the justice of Prakṛti, so all must follow the Dharma of Prakṛti. What you did was a great help. Taking a cause as a seed, she goes on carrying out every action. But since you ask, I have set about giving you a teaching. Tomorrow at daybreak go to the river Sarayū, bathe and come back,’ He said. ‘Note well whatever kinds of sounds you hear on the way back, and come back,’ He said. When she had bathed and came up to the bank, goats on one side and sheep on the other were grazing in flocks upon flocks. They were crying without pause, ‘Me, me.’ ‘He did tell me to come back … some sound,’ she thought, and went back to Rāma. Then Rāma said, ‘Mother, what was the sound you heard?’ ‘Son, wherever I looked, the sheep and goats were crying “Me, me.” That sound alone is what I heard,’ she said. Me, me in Sanskrit means ‘mine, mine’. What is mine? We think all is mine. As long as we think so, it goes on staying away from me. ‘You thought Daśaratha was yours. Where is Daśaratha? You thought all this was yours. What is yours? Nothing is yours. All is God's. That itself is the teaching,’ He said. The day we come to the feeling that all is God's and nothing is mine, that is true Vedānta. That is true Jñāna. Until that Jñāna begins in us, we must stay sunk in this Ajñāna.
As far as possible, to give up infatuation with the body and make the effort to grow infatuation with God: this is man's chief duty. First of all, honour the mother. Love the mother. Serve the mother. The root maker of this body is the divine mother. So no one at all should ever try to hurt the mother. Until we set out on such a path, sorrow will not leave us. This is the lesson we must learn on the first day. Without learning this lesson we cannot pass the examination. Without passing in the primary class, we cannot go on to the higher school. So first of all we must try to satisfy our own mother. This is what they said: ‘… win the home, then win the assembly.’ How can you, who cannot satisfy even your mother, satisfy God? How can strength and abilities that cannot honour even the mother honour God? So I hope and bless you that first of all you will learn to honour the mother who poured out in every way her blood, her life and all her strength; and I bring My discourse to a close.