In plain words
How can one who loves even his own child for himself love God selflessly? Today even loving God is for self! As long as this self-interest remains, the good of others is not understood. The whole meaning of this Navarātri arose to make known the principle of this city of nine, with its nine openings. The body is made of the five elements. This body made of the five elements is itself the world. It is itself the universe. Whatever elements are in this universe, those very elements are in the body. That is why we can call it a small universe. Only when we regard this body so do we become people who worship rightly. Today people think spirituality means doing pūjās, keeping vratas and fasting. All these are only actions bound up with self-interest. Only on the day you can do actions free of self-interest will you be one who has entered the spiritual path. People think going on pilgrimages is spirituality. That is not spirituality. We must root out the animal in humanness. After that we must nourish humanness. We must change it into divinity. This alone is true spirituality. For all the pūjās we do, the animal in us grows day by day; it does not dwindle. All our vratas, and all our pūjās too, are feeding the animal in us. What feeds the animal in this way is the demonic, not spirituality. Little by little the animal in us turns into the demonic. Narakāsura means the asura called ‘nara’. That is, the asura in man. This man becomes an asura and carries himself off to hell. This worship of the body is meant to slay just that. Man must try to recognise the universe within himself. The principle of God is himself; it is not apart from him. Only one who knows himself can know God. You who cannot know yourself, how can you know God? First of all, recognise yourself! ‘Am I living in humanness? Or am I growing in the demonic? Or am I sinking into the animal?’ Each one must decide this for himself.