In plain words
There, though, he has a desire. To give little and ask for much. “O God! If I win ten lakhs in the lottery, I will give You ten thousand,” he says. What is this, God giving him ten lakhs, and God taking ten thousand? Has the God who gave you ten lakhs not got ten thousand of His own! Today such petty desires and narrow feelings are growing. What is the reason? The root cause of it is the failure to grasp the secret of the Veda. Giving paltry goods and wishing paltry wishes. These are not the marks of Bhakti. They are bad marks. It is such devotees who are multiplying now. Swami! If this task of mine is accomplished, I will break three coconuts for You. What if he did not break the coconuts? Even in this the gain comes back to himself. The very coconuts he broke, he himself makes into chutney. In every prayer, in every sādhana, it is selfishness and self-interest. That is why, if you ask in what way the Veda taught the full essence of the Veda, it is this: “Na karmaṇā na prajayā dhanena tyāgenaike amṛtatvamānasu.” My friend, it is not through the good deeds you have done. Not through your wealth; only through tyāga does immortality come to you. That immortality is not coming. You are not doing this tyāga. Go to a cloth shop and fling five rupees in the fellow's face, and he flings a handkerchief in ours. Unless we give, we cannot take from him, can we! Only when we give up one thing do we gain the right to obtain another.
Today there is no tyāga at all. The right to receive is all that is wanted. First of all, what is the tyāga to be made to God? We must make a tyāga of bad qualities. We must take up good qualities. We must make a tyāga of narrowness. We must foster breadth of feeling. We must make a tyāga of unrest. We must attain Śānti. Without making such a tyāga, it is not in the least possible for us to have Śānti. So what we must learn today is tyāga, tyāga. It is not that you are asked to give away your wealth. Nor to share out grain. Nor to share out any other kind of property. When you see anyone poor and helpless, the heart must melt. When it melts, that itself becomes tyāga. But today, because such a sacred atmosphere has gone far away, hearts do not melt. They are growing hard. With bad qualities man's mind is growing harder still. What shall we do with wealth earned in this way? What will become of it in the days to come? There is nothing at all that anyone takes along. While our life lasts, we must take up the way that brings joy to our fellow men. The whole essence of the Veda lies in this alone.