In plain words
Our resolves are the root cause of our joys and sorrows
They speak of namaskāra. That is, ‘what is not I’; this is namaskāra. ‘Mama’ is I, mine; ‘na, mama’ means not I, not mine. As long as we hold on to this ‘mama’, sorrow is all we have! All karma done with the sense of being the doer and the enjoyer brings us sorrow. When you carry out your duty without the ‘I’, live on comfortably, calmly, happily, joyfully. In what you hold on to lie joy and sorrow. In what you let go lies Ānanda. This letting go they called ‘tyāga’. Holding on they called ‘bondage’. Where does this bondage come from? A small example. He who follows the Manas is mānava, man. Because he came from the Manas, they called him ‘maniṣi’. Manas, maniṣi. He who came from the Manas is maniṣi. So he who follows the Manas is man, he who follows the Ātma is God. The first is humanness, the second is divinity. Where does bondage come to us from? Following the two, the Manas and the senses, he gets bound. A small example. You are staying here. A phone call came from Anantapur. The matter is there. The sense is here. As long as that matter does not touch our sense, we stay immersed in our programme with joy. If good news comes from there, we rejoice; if bad news reaches our ears, we grieve! What is the cause of this grief and this joy? The matter is in Anantapur. The sense is in Puttaparthi. Only when the two, that matter and these senses, meet, is there joy or sorrow. If a telegram comes from our home saying ‘the marriage is settled’, we are full of joy. Where did this joy come from?