In plain words
Embodiments of Prema! Even when there is the feeling of the body, we must follow and experience the feeling of the body within the aim of the Ātma. So for those who are students, the body, the senses, Manas, Buddhi and the Ātma: these alone are the five prāṇas. When we recognise well the secret of these five, we need nothing of the spiritual beyond this. There is no need to do any sādhanas at all. If you recognise Satya, that is enough. Satya alone is the form of all. Today, without recognising Satya, even though we do sādhanas, we fall prey to many hardships. So that you may first of all recognise this secret of the body and of the senses, the Vice-Chancellor has asked that in these summer classes, all these fifteen days, I teach the body, the senses, Manas, Buddhi and the Ātma principle, and so I am speaking of these matters of the body. We keep saying, 'Dhyāna, dhyāna.' What are we doing in dhyāna? We close our eyes and sit nicely. This Manas runs off somewhere or other, to the washermen's houses, the potters' houses, the bazaar. Rather than waste time in such dhyāna, enter into karma. Enter into service; do service to society. Without recognising its secret, however long you shut your eyes, all that will come is sleep; samādhi will not come to you. So first of all we must know what Manas is. Only then can we restrain it, can we not? An old woman came: 'Swami! This wretched Manas torments me, it drags me off here and there, it puts me through all kinds of hardship,' she pleaded. When I asked, 'Who is troubling you?', she said, 'Manas.' 'Tell Me where Manas is, and I will catch it and kill it,' I said. 'Where it is, I don't know,' she said. How does she know that a Manas that is somewhere or other is troubling her? Is it Manas that troubles you, or are you troubling yourself? So if you say such and such is troubling me, you can try to root it out. When you do not know what is troubling you, if you sit and put the blame on Manas, that is laziness. So we must try to recognise well the nature of Manas. We must try to recognise the nature of the senses too.