In plain words
That is Ahaṅkāra. That is pomp. Rāvaṇa's heart, full of attachment and hatred, stayed pitch dark. Who can drive away this darkness? This darkness, it goes only by the lamp of Jñāna, and does not go by any other light, he reflected.
But how are we to light this lamp of Jñāna? To root out this inner darkness, the light of the Ātma is needed. The lamp of Jñāna must be given. For this too there must be four things. Vairāgya is its clay lamp. Bhakti is its oil. One-pointedness of the citta is its wick. Tattva-jñāna is the matchbox. Without these four, Ātma-jñāna does not come within our reach. Of them all, the clay lamp called Vairāgya is the one most needed. It is the very base. Without this Vairāgya, whatever kind of learning you study, however many śāstras you read, however much of the Vedas you recite, there is no gain. That is why the Veda said: Nakarmaṇā, naprajayā, dhanena tyāgenaike amṛtatvamānasu.
What is Vairāgya? To be without rāga is Vairāgya. 'I am the body': that is Ahaṅkāra. 'All the things that belong to this body are mine, mine': that is mamakāra. This Ahaṅkāra and this mamakāra, the two together, turn into this rāga. Through this very rāga man falls into the disease called Ajñāna. So how are we to root out this disease called rāga? We must enquire. What is this world? What is sleep? What is suṣupti? When we enquire well into these three times, the waking state is wholly inert. The body is entirely made of inert stuff. Yet it walks. It sees. It talks. It hears. It experiences. How can you call it inert? Caitanya enters it as the time requires and keeps the inert thing moving. Other than that, the body is not Caitanya. There is a clock. When you wind the clock, all its hands move. Just because they move, does that mean there is life in them? No. It is only by means of that key that these hands turn. So it is only through the power of the Ātma within that all the limbs work. This is what the Veda declares: 'Nīla-toyada-madhyasthā vidyullekhena bhāsvarā'. The streak of lightning: within our Spinal column, between the ninth and the twelfth, that divine light, the light of Jñāna, keeps shining like a streak of lightning. Because it moves there in that way, the main switch, the heart, does its work. So long as this main switch is on, the lights burn in all the limbs. With the main switch taken off, whatever room we switch on in, we get no light. So we must hold to this: what is within that main switch is that very divine sense of the Ātma.