In plain words
Saṅkramaṇa means that the sun enters one sign each month. Of these twelve signs, Makara is the most important. Makara Sankrānti teaches Śānti and krānti, and bestows them. Looked at in the natural way, this Sankrānti begins on the 13th and 14th of January in the English year. It brings a kind of physical and mental peace and rest. In this month the farmer, whose life rests on the land, takes his rest. With no work of any kind, he eats the harvest he has grown, at ease in his own home, and enjoys it. Truly, the farmers get no rest in any month but this one. They gather every kind of wealth into their homes. They grow the nine grains and fill their homes. When they have filled their homes with the nine grains, they let the mind ripen too. So peace of mind and body grows in this Sankrānti. In the very word Sankrānti there is a great deal of inner meaning. But man, unable to recognise this inner meaning, forgets the ancient culture of the people of Bhārata and the inner meaning of the sacred festivals, and is content with physical, worldly activities alone.
The end of delusion is Mokṣa
However long we enjoy physical joy, the joy that is eternal and true is not gained. Only when, after searching and searching, one understands the principle that is in oneself, does that true principle become clear to one. A man searches the whole house for the spectacles he has put on his nose, and at last: ‘Ayyo! My spectacles are right here on my nose!’, and he is happy; in the same way every man today searches along endless paths for the principle of eternal bliss, supreme bliss, the bliss of yoga and the bliss of non-duality, which was in himself all along, and at last comes to know the truth that it is in himself: it is this Sankrānti that makes him recognise it. The joy we long for is not in some foreign land or in some place outside. That joy is in oneself.