In plain words
But they are not things man has mastered. You think you are researching them. No, no, all the senses are researching you. You imagine you are enjoying the senses. No, no, the senses themselves are enjoying you. Man does not inquire into this Satya properly. If you had conquered the senses, if you had mastered the senses, there would be no room in you for sorrow of any kind. So the senses themselves are mastering you. The senses themselves are enjoying you. So you are growing weak. You are falling prey to unrest. You are falling prey to troubles of many kinds.
The Ātma alone is the basis of all the senses!
How are we to master the senses? We must recognise that ‘the senses are only tools’. They have been called ‘karaṇas’. ‘Karaṇa’ means a tool. This tool has to be in your hand; you must not be in the tool's hand. Unfortunately you are in the tool's hand. Because you are in the tool's hand, you are unable to do any work. Not only are you unable to do it, you also ruin the tool. So we must bring the senses under our control. Only then will those senses give you no trouble of any kind. Take a sight as an example. You think that the eye sees this sight. No, no. The eye is inert! Who is the one who sees? That is the Ātma. Bulbs are burning in the car. You imagine that merely the bulbs are burning. But it is the current in those bulbs that gives this light. In the same way, the ears: out there, all around, people are listening as through speakers. The sound reaches you through the speakers. So people think the speaker is the basis of it. But if this current stops, the speakers cannot work. In this too the current is flowing.