Passage 2

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In plain words

It is God who nourishes, protects, cherishes and rules Prakṛti, with the form and nature of the three guṇas, with their particular changes, and with the joyous delight of play. To regard this form of Prakṛti as divinity, and for us to experience it there in purity: that alone is the supreme goal of life.

Time is very precious. Time stops for no one. Everyone must follow time, but time follows no one. Only when such time is made worthwhile through karma does humanness turn into divinity. Time is very precious and mighty; it is to be lived; it is to be enjoyed. To make such time worthwhile through the body, by karma: that is the very duty of humanness. Karmānu bandini manuṣyaloke. Man is bound by karma. Yet although this divinity pervades all around us, within us and everywhere, man is unable to recognise that divinity. He cannot catch hold of the very air that is all around him. He cannot see with the radiance that is within him. The whole universe proves the truth that the thing you wandered round in search of is within you. What searching can there be for the divinity that is everywhere? Antara bahiśca tat sarvavyāpya nārāyaṇa sthitaḥ: why search for the divinity that is inside, outside, everywhere? Yet the sight of man today has kept on growing outward. Paśyatīti paśuḥ. Outward sight is the beast's own. Inward sight alone is the sight of man. Forgetting inward sight and trusting outward sight, man is simply losing his Viveka.

When the Gopīs heard the enchanting songs of the flute, they ran to Bṛndāvana to look for Kṛṣṇa, intoxicated, frenzied, mad with Prema. Wondering in anguish where He might be, they searched bush after bush. They questioned flower after flower. The reason: Forgetting the divine form that was eternal and true within themselves, they were drawn to an outward form, delighted in it, and kept struggling to win that delight. With merely physical sight they made every effort to delight in the physical form alone. God has no one form, no one name, no one colour. But the form of Kṛṣṇa that had pressed itself into the Gopī's heart, they could never for a moment forget. They went up to each tree. They went up to each flower:

‘The dark one, the lotus-eyed one, who showers the sweetness of compassion upon us, the one whose crown is ringed with a peacock feather, whose smiling face shines: has such a one stolen the treasure of the women's honour? O jasmines! Is He not hiding in the shade of your bushes? Do tell us!’