Passage 3

Tap any word for its meaning.

In plain words

No one honours Kaikeyī, who listened, either. No one takes the names of those women. Is there any woman named Kaikeyī? Is there any woman named Mantharā? Saying, "We do not want even those bad names," people have put even the name far from them. So today those who speak bad words are equal to Mantharā. Those who listen to these bad words are equal to Kaikeyī.

Not only this: constantly building up evil intentions against good people, through that evil they went on regarding even the embodiments of Dharma as wicked, as embodiments of Adharma. The wicked Kauravas constantly brooded on harm to the Pāṇḍavas, the embodiments of Dharma. When will the Pāṇḍavas be brought low, when will the Pāṇḍavas perish, when will the form and name of the Pāṇḍavas be gone? So they went on thinking of evil alone. That one is Duryodhana. Has any man among men taken the name Duryodhana? Because, having evil thoughts, such people are equal to Duryodhana. That Duryodhana falls into nothing but sorrow, always.

Next, the doing of bad deeds. Rāvaṇa was endowed with mighty power. He was one who had done tapas with great devotion and faith. With all he had, what was the use. Carrying off another man's wife is a great sin. There is none more wicked than this. You must shoot such people. That is why God took the Avatāra of Rāma and slew that Rāvaṇa. What use is any amount of devotion? What use are any number of virtues. To carry off another man's wife is a great sin. There is no sin greater than that. They may have human form, but they are great demons. Rāma came down as the Avatāra to destroy that demon nature. Does any man take a name like Rāvaṇa? People will not even look at the face of such wicked ones. That is why no one takes their name. They may have the human form. But does that make them men? Never. So form is not the mark of humanness. Conduct is the mark of humanness.

One who lives in the world must first of all be human; one who praises the wickedness among demons is a fool; to learn Brahma-vidyā and here find the Self within is the road to Rāja-yoga: this is the word the Śrutis speak.

That is why this authority of the Vedas has made us follow so very sacred a path. So man is the embodiment of the Ātma itself. Covered over by this Ahaṅkāra and mamakāra, he thinks of himself as a man. One who roots out this Ahaṅkāra and mamakāra remains the very embodiment of the Ātma, in truth.

A small example.