In plain words
What is higher than this? Again he went on doing tapas. ‘Oho! For this, prāṇa is what matters most,’ he thought. Though there be food, though there be Manas, though one go on inquiring, a life without prāṇa is no better than a corpse. So the father came: ‘My son! You say prāṇa is the chief thing; it is not prāṇa: prāṇa is present everywhere. But such prāṇa has merely entered a body. Prāṇa may come, prāṇa may go. So the divine principle that neither comes nor goes is Brahman. Find that out and come back,’ and he told him to go. ‘Aha! It is not prāṇa, it is not prāṇa,’ he thought, and went on inquiring well into this prāṇa. It is Vijñāna that tells us: this is prāṇa, this is Manas, this is food, this is life. He thought that without Vijñāna all these were useless. Coming back to his father, he said, ‘Father! Vijñāna is Brahman.’ Then the father again: ‘Foolish boy! How many thousands are there who have Vijñāna! How many crores in the country! People take discernment to be Vijñāna. There are so many such men of Vijñāna,’ he said.
With that Vijñāna, what great deeds they are doing! There is Newton. There is Einstein. All of them are great scientists! Though this Vijñāna is there, it does not give Ānanda! All the men of Vijñāna have only more worry; Ānanda they have none at all. A small example. Einstein was a very great scientist. His wife did not even know her ABC. She was a very coarse person. And Newton too was a great scientist. He was the very first to find out that the earth has a power of attraction. He was forever inquiring. This Newton's nature was very great. But his wife was a great shrew. He suffered at the hands of that shrew. He would go into a room, shut the doors, and stay day and night in that inquiry alone. He had no Ānanda at all. Here we must keep looking with an even mind. Someone came to Einstein and spoke. ‘You are such a great scientist; have you not taught your wife even a little learning?’ they said. ‘Even this is a help to me,’ he said. ‘If she too were highly educated, she would go into a room and sit.