In plain words
God dwells in the heart; He does not dwell in Tirupati, He does not dwell in Bhadrācalam, He does not dwell in Vaikuṇṭha, He does not dwell in Kailāsa. All those are branch offices; the head office is the heart. So you need not wander anywhere for God's sake, you need not spend a naya paisa. But without any expense, without a foot crossing the threshold, Rāma dwells in the heart itself, as if Kaivalya had dropped into the lap.
Though we were born in the land of Rāma's birth and celebrate Rāma's birthday, we are unable to recognise the Rāma principle. Celebrating the birthdays of the great is no great thing; we must put their commands into practice. Putting them into practice is itself true āstikatva. Today we forget the heart and do sādhanas with the body. All of them are useless sādhanas, sādhanas not worth a naya paisa! “Moment after moment only stench oozes out; civet and musk will never come forth.” Is it with such a body that we do sādhanas! Who can tell when this body will tumble down! Who can tell when it will drop! Before it drops, before it tumbles down, we must experience divinity. This is what Vālmīki taught. When he was Ratnākara, he took the lives of so many. But in the end, once he began to remember the Name of Rāma, he forgot his own body. Anthills grew up around him. Even so he went on chanting, “Rāṃ, Rāṃ, Rāṃ, Rāṃ,...” But when we do dhyāna, if a tiny mosquito comes and settles on us, we swat it. Weaklings that we are, unable to bear even a tiny mosquito settling on us, how then can we attain God! Unafraid of hardship and loss, we must fix our aim on God.
“The Sai within your grasp, do not split Him into pieces; make Him wholly your own; once lost, it is not to be had again, this service at the feet of the Lord of Parthi; it gives Bhakti, it builds up strength, and it brings you to Mukti; do not gladly believe what others say and pull your own house down; come, wake up, forget Māyā.”
This is the kind of divine feeling we must develop. We must not set too much attachment on anything. Yet we must carry out our duty. The people of Ayodhyā in those days all had their aim set on their duty; they were not ones to crane their necks for power. That is why they crossed over. The moment Rāma left, they too followed Him. “What use to us is a life without You! You are our all. So take us too along with You, Rāma!” they prayed. That is the true relationship. That is the relationship of the Ātma. If today we are beholding the Rāma of that age, if today we are experiencing the Rāma of that age, we must recognise that this is our good fortune. We must install that Rāma principle in our hearts.
“Rāmo vigrahavān dharmaḥ”: Dharma and Rāma are not separate. Rāma Himself is Dharma, Rāvaṇa himself is Adharma. This life itself is a game of chess between Dharma and Adharma. But Dharma is of two kinds.