In plain words
When this light goes, neither the wick nor the oil goes with it.
In the same way, if we are to drive away the darkness within us, we need a lamp, a wick, oil and a matchbox for it. Our heart itself is the lamp. Our mind is the wick, Prema the oil, Vairāgya the matchbox; only when these four come together does the “flame of the Ātma” shine. Only then does the darkness called “Ajñāna” go.
This flame has two qualities. One: it drives darkness away; the second: it always travels upward. Even if you put a flame in a pit, its light comes only upward; it does not go down. That is why the ṛṣis have described it as “the sacred flame that shows the root above”. So, along with the outer light, we must try to develop the inner light too.
The Spiritual Light
For humanness, purity in the three instruments is supremely important. From it a divine radiance arises in us. Into a man who has purity in the three instruments, not the least fear or anxiety enters. So he needs no protection of any kind. Where there is wrong, there is fear; where there is fear, protection is needed. In the world many people arrange security (protection) for themselves. What is security for? Because there is fear, the need for security arises. Why does this fear arise? Fear comes from doing wrong. For one who does no wrong there is no fear at all; one who has no fear needs no protection. Because man is full of faults, he is forever sinking with fear. When we rid ourselves of these faults, fear too leaves us. At least from now on, we must try not to fall into these faults. Man strains, with ceaseless toil, unending anxiety, endless desires and an anguish he cannot understand, to gain what cannot be gained; what lights the eternally true flame in him is the “spiritual light”. This is like a divine “lighthouse” for man. For every man who has boarded the boat of saṃsāra and is journeying, this divine light is utterly necessary. This divine … that shows the right direction …
However many offices he may hold and however much wealth he may earn, no man in this world is gaining true Śānti and security. Man today believes in everything, but he does not believe in the Ātma. Bhārata is falling into so many troubles only because it has lost faith in the Ātma. A small example: today we take it to be Tuesday. But who decided that today is Tuesday? The moment you woke at dawn, did today come wearing a “Tuesday” board? No, no. We take it to be Tuesday today by the calendar. Who decided this calendar? An astrological almanac-maker decided it. We believe the very things that almanac-maker decided. Where did this science of astrology come from? It began from the “Manuśāstra” itself. Yet no one believes in such a Manuśāstra; they believe in astrology alone. Because they let go of the beginning and hold on to the middle as their support, they are suffering in many ways.