In plain words
‘God is no where,’ people say. Where should these words be joined? God is no where. If you join no to this W: God is now here. ‘God is no where’ itself changes into ‘God is now here’. This is the magic of words. In the same way, having entered this path of pravṛtti and doing these vows and vratas, where must we go? We must come back to this sentence. We must go on remembering one form, one name. After that, all is one and the same. We must reach the oneness of everything. This itself is the fruit of true sādhana. This alone is the goal of sādhana. This is the very essence of sādhana. So however many Pādukās we worship, however many vratas we do, however many festivals we hold, all these are paths that show oneness. But until the recognition comes of the truth that God is one, these sādhanas are indeed needed to some extent. But beyond that, we must not keep going back into these sādhanas right to the end. Every child too, when it is born, cries ‘Koham, koham.’ It says, ‘Who am I, who am I?’ If all our life long we sit crying ‘Who am I, who am I?’, when will this crying ever stop? Even before we die, the answer ‘Soham, soham’ must come from us. So we must enter Viśiṣṭādvaita. From Viśiṣṭādvaita we must enter Advaita. What is in Advaita is oneness alone. Each ācārya taught his own kind of path and so taught the world a way. People who have worldly traits must enter just such a life. So devotees read so many books. They listen to the words of so many elders. They go to so many discourses. But the mind does not change even a little. Our book is not in these books. All these teachings are like ornaments to us. They all look like decoration, but they do not give Ānanda. Ānanda is within. We must experience Ānanda.
As jewels are put away in a worthless iron box, the Ātma-God dwells in the body itself, mark this!
That precious Ātma principle is in the body itself. If you rejoice at having got hold of the iron box and do not look at what is in it, the priceless things will not come to you.