In plain words
Bhakti does not mean singing bhajans with rāga and tāla. Jñāna does not mean merely holding your nose, pulling a cloth over yourself and sitting in a corner. Japa does not mean merely turning a rosary with the fingers while listening with the ears to many things and watching the world with the eyes. To love God in thought, word and deed: that alone is Bhakti. With our merely worldly minds we are trying to make unholy these marks of such sacred Bhakti. The body is impermanent. Manas is unsteady. Buddhi merely follows worldly actions. With such a Manas, Buddhi and body, transient, impermanent and untrue, it is impossible for us to recognise the principle of God, which is eternal Satya. Eternal Satya, free of every limiting adjunct, divinity is right within oneself. A human birth is very hard to come by. It is sacred. But even after taking such a human birth, we give up the search for the Ātma and scramble for the search for food. But in such a sacred life we think only of Siri and do not think of Hari. All our life long we offer worship to Lakṣmī, and do not strive at all for the worship of Lakṣmī's Lord. We argue that Lakṣmī alone is our support, that she comes first, but we do not recognise the principle that is Lakṣmī's Lord.
Rāvaṇa was a man of great learning, a jñānī, a tapasvī, a great devotee. There was no one in the world who had studied more than he had. Rāvaṇa was one who had mastered the sixty-four branches of learning. What use is it, however many branches of learning one masters? But he became a slave to his own senses; one who has mastered branches of learning may become learned, but he cannot become a jñānī who has wisdom. There is a difference between the jñānī and learning. A jñānī means one who has reined in his senses. One who lets his senses roam as they please and masters many kinds of worldly learning may become learned. So all such learning only scrambles to fill the belly; it cannot recognise the principle of the Ātma, which is eternal Satya. One who, with sacred Bhakti and surrender, offers worship and nothing else every day, is a person of great virtue. He was one whose virtues not even the Lord of serpents, nor a king of the earth, nor the lord of learning could describe. One in whom every good quality flourished, a student: that was Prahlāda. Prahlāda. “Pra” means what is unfolding. “Hlāda” means joy. Āhlāda. He lived ever in a delight that was vast and ever expanding.