In plain words
What is Advaita? Oneness joined with the many is Advaita! It is what we experience every moment in daily life! When people see any elder, they say ‘namaskāra’. What is the inner meaning in this namaskāra? Man is made of sound, touch, form, taste, smell and the rest, the five organs of action, the five organs of knowledge. Since man is made of the ten senses, to make these ten senses one, to make one what was many: that is Advaita. That is namaskāra. The feeling with no sense of ‘I’, with no Ahaṅkāra: that is namaskāra. That is, when the senses are made one, there is no room at all for Ahaṅkāra. That unity is purity! That purity is divinity! Today there is no unity at all; then where will purity come from? When there is no purity, how can they recognise divinity? Unity in diversity is found only in Prasanthi Nilayam. So many politicians, so many preachers of religion, so many prophets all believe that there must be oneness, and teach it. But nowhere is there a place to be seen where it is practised and enjoyed. Even among the people who preach it there is no practice. That the many come together as one, effortlessly and without trying, happens in this Prasanthi Nilayam alone! Here all are living like brothers and sisters. You know: from country after country there are the wealthiest of people here, people able to buy up our Bhārata. All such people, with no feeling of difference between great and poor, live in one shed in close fellowship and experience Ānanda. Though they have mansions in their own countries with every comfort, even there they cannot experience this Ānanda. Though there are no conveniences of any kind and their food and ways are changed, they bear it all, put up with it all, and spend their life in Ānanda. The cause of this is the holy Prema in them! Without that Prema you could not stay here even a moment.