In plain words
Not penances, not holy fords, not scriptures, not japa: none lifts you out of the ocean of saṃsāra without the service of the good.
Embodiments of Prema!
Man is undertaking sādhanas of many kinds so that he may cross over. Who do we do tapas for? The fruit that comes of tapas is for oneself alone, not for others. It is not for the Paramātma. We must recognise the truth that japa is done only for one's own Ānanda and not for the sake of others. If we are to cross over from our everyday life, what must we do? Not japa, not tapas, not yoga, not yāga, not yajña. We must serve our fellow man. Service is itself the foremost pūjā. Service is itself the foremost tapas. Service is itself the foremost japa. If you lose your wealth, you can earn it back again. If you lose a friend, you can gain a friend. If you lose your wife, you can marry a second time and gain a wife too. But if you lose the body, you cannot gain that body back again. So the body is very sacred. For what purpose must we take care of this sacred body? ‘The body is indeed the first instrument of Dharma.’ We must take care of this body for the practice of Dharma and for the practice of service. Human birth is very hard to come by. It is very sacred. When you have taken on humanness and still cannot recognise the secret of humanness, what use is such a human birth? Now, thought comes naturally to this man. It is through man's own search, out of the waves of feeling within, that many śāstras, the Upaniṣads, painting and sculpture and all such arts are taking shape. But unable to recognise the working of his own Buddhi, unable to carry on the search for Satya along the right path, each one is searching for Satya along a path of his own.