In plain words
Whatever body you punish, it is the same as punishing God.’ To develop that feeling of oneness, we must first of all pray to God with Prema.
Today people practise such good works as bhajans, dhyāna, japa... All these are sacred acts for making your mind pure. When the mind becomes pure, everything becomes pure. First of all you must attain purity of citta. All good deeds were made only for the purity of citta. Every man must develop sacred Prema. There is no other life greater than Prema. Life itself is Prema. Prema itself is life. We planted a green sapling. That sapling grew from day to day. That tree was gleaming with green leaves. After some days the leaves withered. The branches all dried up. The whole tree dried up. They saw it. Thinking that such a fate had overtaken this tree, the sapling raised with so much toil, raised with so much love, they pulled it up without pity and threw it away. How far did you love it? You loved it as long as it was green, as long as it had life. When the Prema in it called greenness went, you pulled it out without pity and threw it away. So what is that Prema? What is this life? Because the life called greenness was not in this tree, you cut it down without pity.
The welfare of society comes first
Young women and young men!
As important as the power to burn is in fire, as important as coldness is in ice, so important is Prema in man. If fire has no power to burn, it becomes charcoal, not fire. In the same way, without coldness it is not ice. In the same way, if there is no Prema at all in man, he is only a lifeless body; that can never be humanness. So for man, Prema alone is life. We must recognise this principle of Prema well. A man without Prema is only a creature without life. But we lead Prema into many paths. But Prema is one only! The love of mother and father, the love of wife and children, the love of friends... All these are there. It looks as if divine Prema were one more, joined to these loves. No, no. Only when the nature of all these loves becomes one is there the true feeling of one Ātma. In these physical loves there is some selfishness, more or less. But the Prema of God is a Prema free of selfishness. Each of them is like a thread. All of them are very weak. You love your wife and children as long as they are there. After that, who is related to whom? No, no. Divine Prema is eternal. It is everlasting. It is pure. It is selfless. That is precisely why, to gain it, you must give up these physical qualities. what is the way to immortality? removal of immorality is the only way to immortality. Only when we root out lust, anger, greed, pride and envy, all of them in us, do we reach the sacred goal. All these are weaknesses. The true strength is the strength of God alone. All worldly strengths are only weaknesses. They came in the middle; they go in the middle. You must not regard this as lasting. Do your own duty. How should we conduct ourselves in the world of nature? How should we give peace and security to society? Young women and young men must recognise well how we should guard the welfare of society. You are the very foundation of the world to come. The good and evil of the world to come depend on the writing on your foreheads. So only when you are good will the world become good. Only when the individual is good will society become good.
Embodiments of Prema! Even if you achieve no other virtue, achieve this pure Prema. Become worthy of the Prema of God. Everything will come to you. You are the actors. God is the director of the play. The nature of the director is precisely to guide the roles in the right way. You must be the right actors. So that you may follow such a path, we have begun this youth conference today. Everywhere you look in the world there is unrest; everywhere you look it is wasting away with evil feelings. Wherever we go, fear and panic do not leave us. Peace is nowhere to be seen. Outside it is all pieces. peace is in you. you are the embodiment of peace. you are the embodiment of truth. you are the embodiment of love. you are the embodiment of god. You must recognise this truth. ‘I myself am God, I myself am God’: feel this with your hand on your heart. You will surely become God. Only then will your feeling change. Think of yourself as God. Do not think of yourself as merely a man. Only then will you turn into the very form of God.