In plain words
From discontent come two losses. Unrest is one. Unhappiness is one; these come about. So man must rest content with what he has, go along with that alone, and come to the state of experiencing joy. The mind must not be ruined by boundless desires. Tyāgarāja sang that without Śānti there is no happiness. Tyāgarāja was a great devotee of Rāma. Tyāgarāja, the devotee of Śrī Rāmacandra, went through many kinds of experience himself and went on giving them to the world.
We must recognise some meanings of the principle called Rāma. What, after all, is the root cause of human birth? The sin committed, the suffering undergone, and Ajñāna: these three alone are the causes; that is ra-a-ma; only when these three come together does it become Rāma. ‘Ra’ is the seed of fire. ‘A’ is the seed of the moon. ‘Ma’ is the seed of the sun. What does the seed of fire do? It burns everything to ash. So it is the letter ra that burns to ash the sins man has committed. The seed of the moon is what cools the suffering man has undergone and brings him Śānti. That is the letter ‘a’. The sun is the one who destroys the darkness called Ajñāna and gives bright light. The name Rāma removes our sin, our suffering and our Ajñāna too, all at once.
Within the word Rām: Rā means: the door of the mind keeps opening. Through this door called ‘rā’ all the sins we commit go falling out. Not only that: so that these sins that have gone out do not come back in, ‘m’ strives to remove the sin and drive it outside. It shuts the door so that the sins that have gone do not come back in. We must understand the sweetness that is in the name of Rāma, the holiness that is in the name of Rāma, the divinity that is in the name of Rāma, and act on it. That is precisely why Tyāgarāja said, ‘Knowing it, think of Rāma, O mind.’ If one knows, it is a great happiness. Even if one does not know, the name of Rāma removes sins. So we must try to savour the sweetness of Rāma with a joyful heart, with a feeling that is steady, pure and selfless.
Two kinds of birds have entered this man. One bird moves about with “I” and “mine”, with selfishness and self-interest, with Ahaṅkāra. It is something that simply perishes. It is not the everlasting ‘I’. The second, ‘I and mine’, is free of attachment and hatred. It is this that Rāma, who is the sun, follows.
In this new year, in many states, they mix neem, mango blossom and all such things, and today they eat the whole mash, so as to look on the different kinds of pleasure and pain with an equal mind.