In plain words
What must be reached must be reached. Through these three we gain true Ānanda. What is it that must be known? ‘What is this world? How long can I last? What am I experiencing?’: this. Before our eyes so many are being born, so many are passing away. All this is ja-gat: coming and going is what goes on. When we come to know, ‘The principle of this world is that it comes and goes,’ Ānanda wells up in us. Then what must be known must be known. This is our world. You have come to know it well. But what must be given up must be given up. What is it that we must give up? Delusion! We believe that what is not true is true, cling to it hard, and fall prey to sufferings in many ways. We think, ‘Some Māyā or other has caught hold of me and is tormenting me,’ or ‘Sorrow is tormenting me,’ or ‘Sorrow will not let me go.’ Has sorrow legs, eyes and hands? It is you who have legs, hands and eyes. You have caught hold of it; it has not caught hold of you. Sorrow has no limbs of any kind. You imagine limbs that are not there, make yourself forget the limbs that are in you, and think that it has caught hold of you and is tormenting you. So it is not sorrow that makes you suffer. You yourselves catch hold of sorrow and suffer. This is Ajñāna. We must give up this Ajñāna. Only then is there Ānanda for us. What is it that must be reached? We must reach the place from which we came.
Having Come from the Ātma, We Must Go Back and Merge in the Ātma
‘To go back to where it came from is the nature of every living being’: we, who came from the Ātma, must go and reach the Ātma. Only then is there Ānanda for us. That is what the Upaniṣads mean by ‘Asato mā sad gamaya’: from asat we must come to know Satya. Only when Satya is there do we notice the shadow called Asatya. ‘Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya’: what is darkness? What is light? What is, is one alone! Light. Only when it is not seen is it dark. There is no such thing at all as darkness apart, or light apart. Knowing, ‘The absence of light is darkness,’ we must give up the darkness. We must keep the light alone in our sight.