In plain words
In one it may be a severe illness. In another it may be slight. But though there is a quantity difference, the quality of this disease remains one and the same. It cannot be cured by natural medicines, nor can an expert doctor heal it. What is this disease? It is none other than the disease called ‘Ahaṅkāra’.
How must Ahaṅkāra be rooted out?
Unable to understand this thing called Ahaṅkāra, man goes on suffering it. Where is there any room for this Ahaṅkāra? If he goes on indulging an Ahaṅkāra that has no room to stand on, it is only because he likes it. He has taken on this disease because he is fond of it. We must try, just once, to recognise this vast world. What is the cause of this Ahaṅkāra of mine? In so vast a world, on the map of this world, our Bhārata looks very small. In this Bhārata, the state of Madras is very small. In this state of Madras, Kodaikanal is very small. Within Kodaikanal, big as it is, the individual is very small. What reason is there for one so small to feel proud, seeing so vast a world? Ajñāna alone is the root cause of this Ahaṅkāra; or, in one who has recognised the truth that the divinity in this world and I are one, there is no room at all for this Ahaṅkāra. Here we must make two kinds of inquiry. In so vast a world, how great am I? If one inquires in this way, there is no room for Ahaṅkāra. ‘Sarvaṃ viṣṇumayaṃ jagat’: everything is the very form of God. If one understands the broad feeling, ‘I too am the very form of God,’ there too there is no room for Ahaṅkāra. If we ask what the reason is: the principle ‘sarvaṃ viṣṇumayaṃ jagat’ is not in him.