In plain words
'I have read the books, I have gone fully through all the śāstras, I have learnt matchless learning': why this pride in saying so? Your two hands folded, you cannot worship the Paramātma with Bhakti through these present learnings; all of them are useless today, are they not, O man!
… we may see, however much we may read, in the very end these learnings … what stills the hunger of the mind.
To fill the belly that craves food, enduring hardships, a crore of learnings are learnt with zeal, yet perfect happiness is not won, and this human race languishes in sorrows today; on the Lord beyond the highest to meditate: does that not show devotees the way, O man!
Only when our Prema goes toward the Paramātma does it take on its natural form. See! When raindrops fall on black soil, all that water turned black. When they fall on sand, in a single moment they soak away. When it falls on red soil, it turns red. When they fall on a pearl oyster, they come out as pearls. The same rain, falling on each thing, takes on a different form for each.
What does the pearl oyster stand for? It is the very form of God. The ocean called saṃsāra … we have done many kinds of sādhana and won that sacred, divine pearl. We must take care that the pearl we have won does not slip back and fall into it again. Mīrā said: Think how hard we must labour if the pearl in the ocean is to come to us. Only when we go down to the very bottom and search does that pearl come to us. What we find on the shore are only pearl oysters. The pearl is not found there. The pearl stays in the ocean itself. In Tamil, the Nāyanār said: 'Lord! I dived into this ocean and brought back the pearl. O Kṛṣṇa! Guard this pearl so that it does not fall back into the ocean,' he said. I have no refuge at all. You must protect this pearl. You alone are my refuge. My Lord. You alone are my all. Taking care not to let slip what we have won: that is our great earning.
All the rivers called learnings flow together into spiritual learning. In spiritual learning alone do we find the flawless pearl. Where is the spiritual found? Spiritual learning … only in the principle of true Prema. I have a seed with me. Only when we plant that seed in the earth does it become a sapling, then a tree, and give us fruit. If instead we put that seed in a tin, it does not become a sapling. It does not become a tree. No fruit comes.