In plain words
A love full of tender fondness. It is not possible for anyone to separate this love. While things stood so, after some time the mother fell ill. This illness went somewhat out of hand. The mother died. This young man kept that body before him. ‘Mother! You who loved me so much, have you left me and gone? Where have you gone? How could you go away, leaving me? How am I to live alone? I am one who could not stay away from you for even a single day. Today, how am I to live without you?’ he says, grieving deeply. Here we must make some inquiry. All this time, whom has this son been honouring as his mother, trusting, worshipping, and finding joy in? Whom did he worship? Thinking ‘This body is my mother’, he trusted it for 25 years and went on loving her. All this time he regarded that body as his mother. But that body is right there! Then why does he say, ‘Have you left me and gone?’ Who is it that has gone away? Prāṇa. Then he came to know. ‘As long as prāṇa was in this body, he loved his mother. He honoured her in every way, he served her. So who is his mother? The one who has left him, she is his mother. What is it that has gone away? Prāṇa. So prāṇa itself is his mother, not the body. The body is only an instrument! He who all this time had regarded this body as his mother realised, after she died, that the body is an instrument and that prāṇa itself is the mother. So who is the mother? Prāṇa itself is the mother. What is prāṇa? Prāṇa itself is God. That is consciousness. Only because that consciousness is in all bodies are all bodies bustling with life, laughing merrily and carrying out each their own duties. Consciousness is in all. So, ‘Īśāvāsyam idaṃ sarvaṃ.’ Because consciousness is present in everyone, God is present in everyone. But now it is consciousness that has left this body. At one time it was in this body too.