Passage 13

Tap any word for its meaning.

In plain words

Today all the Vedāntins say suṣupti means deep sleep. What does deep sleep mean? Just this: keeping free of any tie with the senses! You have eyes, and you see. But there is no desire for acting on it. You have ears, and you hear. But there is no attraction. You have a mouth, and you speak; but you have no tie to those words. This is suṣupti. In the language of Vedānta like this, each word has many sacred meanings.

In the two-syllable word ‘kā…ma’, ‘kā’ means happiness and ‘ma’ means limited. So the meaning of this kāma is limited happiness. As for moha: it is desire for what does not last. And what does not last is itself limited! To understand this Vedānta well, you have to take great pains. So the right and easy path is just this: to pray to God and love Him purely and steadily! Tukārām said: ‘O Rāma! I do not know what Jñāna is. I do not know what Bhakti is. I do not know what yoga is. I do not know what Satsaṅga is. I cannot perform yajñas, yāgas and such rites. To hold You, I have only one thing. To love You purely, with no toil, no loss, no spending of money, no trouble of any kind! Grant me that one thing; that is enough. You need grant me nothing else.’ By that steady Prema alone he was able to attain God. All desires of this sort depend on what falls to one's lot! That too has an end. To look at, it seems a great ocean. But even the ocean has a limit. We think its depth is fathomless. The sky seems endless and quite beyond reach. But it too has a limit.

Many of the science students know this. There is the ‘sun’. This is what they call the ‘solar system’.