In plain words
Taking as our support the names and forms that are impermanent and fleeting, we cast aside asti, bhāti and priya, which are eternal Satya. This is the wrong road we have taken today. The day we leave this road behind and enter the right path, that very day we shall understand the nature of the Lord of all.
Embodiments of Prema! We must believe Prakṛti itself to be the Tattva of the Paramātma. Trying to recognise the easy notion that the Paramātma lives off somewhere will be in vain. So we must believe all living beings, too, to be forms of the Lord of all. So in this Śarannavarātri, just nine days were set apart to teach this sacred Tattva of Prakṛti clearly and in full. The power of will, the power of action, the power of knowledge. The power of action means Lakṣmī, wealth. Wealth of every kind. Wealth that is the form of all prosperity. Even man’s breathing in and breathing out is a wealth. The consciousness in man’s limbs is a wealth. Man’s looks, too, are wealth. Words, too, are wealth. All these are forms of aiśvarya. That is why they gave Him the name Īśvara. He who is the form of all aiśvarya is Īśvara. Today we must recognise the truth that Īśvara is everywhere. The power of knowledge: that is Sarasvatī. Where is this Sarasvatī? We think of Her as Brahmā’s consort. Where is this Brahmā? These, Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara, are only the forms of the guṇas sattva, rajas and tamas. No one has ever seen them in bodily form. So Prakṛti is a form made of the three guṇas. That itself, they said, is the form of the Trimūrti.
She who is the Word that is Brahman, all that moves and is still, all light, all speech, all eternal Ānanda, beyond the highest, all Māyā, all Śrī:
such a power, endowed with the form of the eightfold wealth, is the form of this Prakṛti. She teaches every kind of learning. When we inquire a little into what this Sarasvatī’s vehicle is, they say it is the swan vehicle. We think the swan is some special bird. Sarasvatī is the form of speech. This speech itself is Sarasvatī. This is the form of the Veda. When this speech, the very form of the Veda, comes out of us, it comes resting on the breath going in and out. Without breathing in and out, a word cannot be spoken. So the very breath going in and out, So’ham, is shaped into the swan, and it is on this swan called So’ham that Sarasvatī, who is speech, comes forth from us. So Sarasvatī is not somewhere else. She is right in our breath going in and out, Sarasvatī. So Durgā, Lakṣmī and Sarasvatī abide within this, the body. They abide beyond reach and beyond sight. If that very power were not in us, we could not see, hear, speak, walk or act.