In plain words
Nor does he even care what will become of the work afterwards, or how it will turn out. He works till five o'clock. He collects his wages. He goes away. That is why he thinks of himself as an outsider. At home there is the wife. There are the children. At home they go on doing everything. But they are not working for any salary. In the evening, coming to her husband, “Dear! I have cooked for you; will you give me my wages?” she does not ask. Yet she does it with a pure heart. She does it in a holy way. She looks after all the things in the house with care. Along with this kind of authority, the people of the house enjoy a certain freedom. So the one who prays to God for the sake of the fruit is a hired hand. The one who tries to enjoy God with the authority and freedom of “God is mine, He dwells in me” is the master. We must become the master, not the servant.
For this path, three kinds of sādhana have been laid down. One is the path of the fish, the second the path of the animal, the third the path of the tortoise. What is the difference among these three? The fish can live only in the water. It cannot live on the bank. The animal can live only on the bank. It cannot make its home in the water. The tortoise moves about both in the water and on the bank, and lives its life in both. The first sādhaka tries to have his sādhana, his silence and his concentration only within the bounds of himself, his own people and his family. The second can gain concentration only when he is alone. In a crowd he cannot gain concentration. An ordinary man sat down at home to do dhyāna. He had a great many children. He went into the pūjā room. He shut the door and sat down. One child after another kept coming and knocking on the door. He grew weary of it. “Chī! Rather than stay in this house, it is better to go off to the forest and do tapas,” he thought. He went to the forest. He sat under a tree and was absorbed in dhyāna. The birds in that tree kept screeching. Not only did they screech; so many birds gathered that they let their droppings fall on his head. There too he grew weary. At home the din of children, in the forest the din of birds. “Rather than listen to all this din, it is better to kill myself,” he thought. This man cannot bear to hear sounds, at home, outside, anywhere. He cannot recognise the Satya that everything is the very form of God. This is the mark of the rajo-guṇa. Then the sāttvic. Wherever he sits, it is all the same: he has concentration. Whether he sits in the midst of a crowd or sits alone, he experiences oneness in every way.