In plain words
Dried branches can be used as firewood. The ripe fruit can be eaten. The uses, too, are each different. But, as it is said, ‘Bījaṃ māṃ sarvabhūtānāṃ’, for all of these, the branches, the twigs, the leaves and the fruit, that seed alone is the root and base. Without the seed there is no tree at all. Without the tree there are no branches. Without the branches there is no fruit. So what proves the oneness of all things, each resting on the other in this way, is Advaita. The world, made up of what is seen, may appear as manifold. But when you enquire, it brings you to recognise that the principle at the root is one alone.
Learning is for Jñāna, labour is for bread
I told you yesterday. Śaṅkara was born in Kālaḍi; as soon as his father died, he prayed to his mother, took sannyāsa with her consent and went to a guru named Govinda, to study the Vedas, the Śāstras, the Itihāsas and the Purāṇas. This Govinda's guru was Gauḍapāda. Before he had completed fourteen years, Śaṅkara had studied the four Vedas and the six Śāstras and thoroughly mastered such Śāstras as logic, grammar and Mīmāṃsā. ‘Śraddhāvān labhate jñānaṃ.’ For the one who has śraddhā, time is no obstacle at all. For everything, time is the chief thing; time is the measure. ‘Kālāya namaḥ, kālakālāya namaḥ, kāladarpadamanāya namaḥ, kālātītāya namaḥ, kālasvarūpāya namaḥ’: all is time! For a child that is born to grow up and become ‘an old man’, time is the measure. As soon as it is born we call it an infant; at ten years we call him a boy. At thirty years we call him a young man. At seventy-five years we call him an old man. This old man, young man, boy and infant are one and the same! These different stages are only the names and forms that come with time. Because Śaṅkara had śraddhā in great measure, he completed the study of every kind of Śāstra within fourteen years. One day Govinda resolved to find out Śaṅkara's power, his strength and his ability, and set about debating with him.