In plain words
Unsteady is life in the world; unsteady are youth and wealth; unsteady are wife, sons and the rest; Satya and fame, these two, are steady.
This body, the outward states, these pleasures, these sorrows, these losses, these measures of age: all these are unsteady. Youth too is unsteady. It was not there before. It will not be there ahead. It is like a passing cloud that comes and goes in between. It comes in between and goes in between itself. Then wealth. How long does wealth stay with us? Wealth always slips away like water under the feet. You have a hundred-rupee note. You say, ‘This is my note.’ Looking at your face, the hundred-rupee note laughs, it seems. You madman, how long can I stay with you? Go to the bazaar and come back. I am going away from you. I am not one who stays steadily with you. I have seen many faces like this. In the end my own form is falling to pieces. Through this changing of hands. My form is wearing away. It is melting away. Even something like a stone, when it keeps being moved, melts away. All of you, recognise it well. How small an ant is! When ants all travel in a line over a stone, after some time the stone wears away. A path is formed. If a stone wears away through our movement, how long will this paper currency stay steady? How long are wife and children steady? When did the children come? Did they come with you? No. Before you were born, you had no sons. After death there are no sons. Before marriage there was no wife. After death there is no wife. After the marriage takes place, you say, ‘She is my wife.’ After he is born, you say, ‘He is my son.’ Before this, whom did you think of as wife and son? No one. But two things alone stay steady. Satya and fame stay steady. Even after the body dies, fame remains. Satya is that which stays unchanged in all three times. Satya was there before we were born. It is there in our life too. It is there after we die. Satya is not something that changes.
God is the embodiment of Satya. Truth is God. We must take such Satya as a help. Satya is our very svarūpa. It is not something we have newly discovered. But when we sit in solitude, that Satya reveals itself to us. But what is solitude? Many people think of solitude along a perverted path and take it in wrong senses. We think that to sit in a room by oneself, the doors and windows shut, all alone, is solitude.