In plain words
What is sādhana? The bad feelings in man must be driven away, and good feelings brought in. That is true sādhana. Develop good intentions. Develop good intentions and bring them into good deeds. At the very end, at the time of leaving his life, the Buddha said one thing. Man learns many skills so that he may be happy. Man takes up many jobs so that he may be happy. Man marries so that he may be happy. Man has children so that he may be happy. Man builds mansions so that he may be happy. But in the end, is he happy? Happiness is not in these. At the very end the Gautama prince called Ānanda, his aunt's son. Ānanda: calling him, laying a hand on his head: “My dear! I came to teach Satya. God is there wherever you look. Truth is God,” he said. “Speak the truth; do not suffer for fear of the troubles others cause or under the pressure of others. In the world there are only those who press on you; there is no one who helps. Satya is God; speak the truth. Second,” he said, “Ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ.” What does Dharma mean? Is it the dharma of the brahmacārī? The dharma of the householder? Or the dharma of the vānaprastha? Or the dharma of the sannyāsī, or the dharma of the śāstras: which is Dharma? None of these is Dharma. These are all impermanent: dharmas to be followed for daily duties as long as human life lasts. The true Dharma, he said, is Ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ. This is what the Veda calls “satyaṃ brūyāt, priyaṃ brūyāt”. What is pleasing is Dharma: the Veda teaches that the second word of Dharma is priya. “But someone told my mother and father that I would not become a householder and would go away. For that reason my mother and father, my relatives and friends and all the people tried somehow to keep me in bondage. They sank me in this worldly life. That seemed to me the chief obstacle. That very obstacle set me on this sādhana. Otherwise I would not have practised these karmas.” So it has been said: the pleasure is an interval between two pains.