Passage 9

enni vidyalu nērci ēmi phalamu

His poems 48

Also in his talks (10)

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In plain words

All is tyāga, tyāga. We must grow the great-hearted resolve that makes a tyāga of oneself. However much we hear, however much we achieve, our dispositions stay just where they were.

However many arts one learns, what is the fruit? Who has the power to escape the writing on one's own brow? If bad dispositions settle in one's head, they turn to stone, the dispositions wither.

So none of this is in our studies.

Having read all learning and become most clever, the dull-witted one does not know himself in his heart; however much he studies, however much he hears, the low man cannot give up his base nature. Study and study again, and it is only argument and debate; no one attains full Jñāna. Why read and read and read, and then die? Study the learning that knows no death.

Tyāga is the learning that knows no death. In that tyāga great Ānanda comes to us. In this Ānanda we attain immortality. We attain deathlessness. We bathe in Ānanda. Consider how much good there is in this tyāga. So what we must learn today, the fruit of the yajña, is tyāga itself. It is tyāga that the Veda has been teaching. In the Veda, each and every mantra is a form of the Divine. Today all of us are chanting the Veda. What are we experiencing of its form in action? A Veda that we do not experience in action is of no use.

Is the hunger of the hungry man appeased by hearing how the five kinds of dishes are cooked? Does a pauper's poverty go merely by hearing of the power of wealth? Does a sick man's illness go merely by hearing of the glory of medicines?

We must drink those medicines. Only then will this illness of ours be cured. We must eat food. Then hunger is appeased. Only when we put it into practice in this way does that Ānanda come to us. For the attaining of Ānanda we must learn, understand the principle of yoga, and try to live in divinity.