Passage 4

Tap any word for its meaning.

In plain words

When the water in the stream rises, the water in the wells too comes in greater measure. So, only when man’s nature stays very far from these two streams: to bring about that state, they have handed down this spiritual path. To help us recognise the Tattva that is eternal Satya, to hand on a holy history, to hand on karma that bears fruit, it has shown that Bhāratīya Dharma is the very form of Śānti for that Satya which time does not change, dissolution does not diminish and creation does not increase. It has also shown that morality and integrity are the natural seats of this Dharma. So morality and integrity are the chief paths for reaching God.

But this morality and integrity, too, come to us only through Prakṛti. We must believe that all objects in the world are forms of the Paramātma. All living beings, too, we must believe to be forms of the Paramātma. Then neither lust and anger nor attachment and hatred can arise in us. When all things are one, there can be no hatred or attachment towards anything. Man’s names and forms may differ. But the true Tattva, the divinity, is one alone. A ram’s horns are crooked. When it is time to fight, they are just right. In the same manner, the forms of all human beings look different from one another. Their faces, too, differ. But in all of them the Tattva of the Ātma is one and the same. In the ocean countless waves keep rising. Another wave does not appear to us the way one wave was. The wave that came keeps coming to its end, and another wave begins. However many waves rise, this world shows us the truth that the water in all these waves is one. Just so, in this Prakṛti, a divine power pervades everything. Such a Tattva of Prakṛti we must understand first of all. A man who cannot master Prakṛti itself, what else can he master? We must recognise the truth that our humanness has come to us for the very purpose of understanding Prakṛti, and act on it. This is what the language of Vedānta teaches as ‘Know yourself’. Once you know yourself, you will have known the whole world.

So first of all we must try to recognise this world. He alone is the Lord of the world. The great Being of consciousness who dwells in this world is one alone. He alone is Sat, Cit and Ānanda. In all objects asti, bhāti and priya are present in equal measure. It is only the names and forms, impermanent and fleeting, that appear different to us.