In plain words
To think of this body, which is seen, as the seer called ‘I’ is ignorance. Our body is one of the things that are seen. To think the body itself is ‘I’ brings nothing but harm. In samādhi and in deep sleep this body does not appear to us. So you are not the body. You yourself are the seer. In this world, created with its many forms, there is one principle that is the ground of it all. From this ground everything can be made. If there were no ground at all, no one could make anything.
A small example: there are ornaments of gold of many kinds. What is in every ornament is gold alone. When all those ornaments are melted and poured into one place, all that gold becomes one lump. So though the gold in the shape of ornaments looks many and different, when it is melted and poured it remains just what it is. So no change, no alteration can come to the gold. In the same way, though all that is seen has many forms and names, the ‘I’ as its seer does not change and remains its ground. So everything comes forth from the ground that is ‘I’. When we hear ‘I’, we must not take it to mean the body.
Recognise the truth that you are the seer
When man recognises this truth, he feels no grief in this world fashioned of things seen. Such a one is for ever immersed in Ānanda. Without a ground, no form can appear. The principle “I, I” dwells for ever in every form. In every human being, in every living thing, the first sound that arises is ‘I’. Along with the Praṇava, what is there first is “I”. Today, forgetting the divinity that is the ground, and trusting only the outward guises with their changing forms, one has to suffer many sorrows. For in every human being divinity is present, pervading all. Whoever can recognise the knowledge of Brahman, he alone can become Brahman. “The knower of Brahman attains the highest.” That is, one who recognises this principle called “I” becomes the supreme Brahman. If one would be rid of sorrow: only when one recognises who one is can one be freed from it. What is, is One. There is no second. This is the word of the Śrutis. But it is because man pays no heed to the teachings of elders or to the Śrutis, and turns a deaf ear to them, that he forgets his own true nature. He must try to know that by knowing which he can know everything.
If we come to know the one clay, the truth becomes plain to us that clay is in every vessel made of that clay.