In plain words
A tree trunk can be straightened, with no bend left; a stone can be dressed straight and true; but can anyone straighten the mind, with no bend left? This is the plain truth I am telling you.
It is the mind that leads man onto the wrong path. Of happiness and sorrow, of sin and merit, of pleasure and disease, of everything, the mind is the root cause.
Aham is Brahman, but Ahaṅkāra is not Brahman
We must bring this crazy mind of ours under control. The mind is a great thief. With a thief right beside us, keeping valuables with us is always dangerous, isn't it! So if we want to protect the wealth called good qualities, we must catch the thief called the mind. Who will hand it over to be caught? If anyone is to hand it over, it is the mind itself that must. But a thief will not hand himself over, will he! So the mind will never give itself up. What stands in the way of every sādhana is the mind. What keeps us far from the divine is the mind. Flies and mosquitoes settle on everything, but they do not settle on fire. In the same way, the mind too settles on everything, but stays very far from God alone. So a man who takes the mind for his support sinks lower than a beast and falls. Only he who keeps the mind under control becomes steadfast, becomes a man of depth. Hanumān, who was calm, virtuous and strong, stood humble before Rāma; before the cruel Rāvaṇa he stood unshaken. We too must stand unshaken before the mind that gets in our way. Before the principle of Aham that helps us, we must stand humble. This Aham is ‘I’. But because we take the form itself to be ‘I’, it has turned into ‘Ahaṅkāra’. Aham is Brahman, but Ahaṅkāra is not Brahman. We must bring our life to its close not with Ahaṅkāra but with the feeling of ‘Aham’.
Forget the non-Ātma, and what remains is the Ātma!
Śravaṇam, kīrtanam, Viṣṇusmaraṇam, pādasevanam, vandanam, arcanam, dāsyam, sneham, ātmanivedanam: what are you doing all these sādhanas for? You do them only to satisfy a crazy mind. But you must do all your sādhanas for one thing. For what? You must do sādhana to forget the non-Ātma. Forget the non-Ātma, and what remains is the Ātma! In front of us the bulbs are shining. Switch them off, and everything goes dark. Where does that darkness come from? The moment the light is put on, where does it go? It neither comes nor goes. Darkness is just the absence of light. In the same way, the non-Ātma is just the absence of the Ātma. So there is no need to drive the non-Ātma away. Why? The non-Ātma does not exist. What is the sense in driving away what does not exist? It is nothing but delusion! Many people do dhyāna, they sing bhajans. All this is only for the mind's satisfaction! When we recognise the oneness fully, there is nothing we need to do. Then the doubt may arise in you: ‘May I say, “I am God”?’ Surely you may say it. But before the word God there stands ‘I’, doesn't it! Know that first of all. That principle called ‘I’ is divinity itself. There are not two separate things, ‘I’ and ‘God’.