In plain words
he said. This is the twelve-syllable mantra. “Trōva vedakukonuṭa doḍḍa buddhi.” These are twelve syllables. It came from clay. It went back into clay. Coming from clay, it goes back into clay. Water comes and goes back into water. Fire comes and goes back into fire. Space comes and goes back into space. But man comes, and stays on only as man. He forgets the place he came from. He cannot recognise what his duty is. What is the purpose of life? He cannot ask himself, “What is the goal of my life?” A rich man came and asked Me a question. “What is the purpose of life?” he said. He was from Uttar Pradesh. I told him. “Khānā, pīnā, sonā, marnā,” I said. “Eating, drinking, sleeping and dying: these four alone are your goals,” I said. Beasts, birds and animals too do these very things. Then how can you say that man is higher than they are? “Jantūnāṃ narajanma durlabham.” Man is most exalted, rare to come by. How is he rare? Rare at earning money? Is it for this that we are born? No, no. Does the man without money not live? Of course the money our life needs is needed. But it is having it beyond measure that spoils the mind. One must try to recognise the goal of one's own life. Is man, who has won the name and fame of Vijñāna, Sujñāna and Prajñāna, to live like the beasts? That is a disgrace to humanness itself. We show off all our strength in argument. We waste our whole life in this logic-chopping. We swagger that we are great scholars. This is not the working of our true quality. We must recognise our true nature and act on it.
The sense of “mine” is the cause of troubles
What is a man? Its meaning lies in the word itself. Mā-na-va. Mā means Ajñāna.