In plain words
Why initiation? Soham: that itself is enough for us. We must teach ourselves from within ourselves alone. Man need not go to anyone else. Everything is right within himself. No yantra greater than man is to be found. Even when we have taken such a holy human birth, they said, ‘A human birth is hard to win.’ There are so many holy elements in man. In this yantra there are five kośas. They are the annamaya, the prāṇamaya, the manomaya, the vijñānamaya and the ānandamaya. Of these five kośas, the body is the annamaya kośa. Subtler than this is the prāṇamaya. Subtler still than that is the manomaya. When you go on to the subtle body, there is the vijñānamaya. The people of today all travel as far as the manomaya, but they have not gone as far as the vijñānamaya. When a man reaches the vijñānamaya and experiences it, only then does the ānandamaya come to him. Why did they say, “Among all creatures, birth as a man is hard to win”? This Prajñāna is in man. The ānandamaya is in him. Not only this. In man there are yet more powers, beyond all measure. It is not possible to fathom these powers in the least. Once we have reached the vijñānamaya, the ānandamaya is within our grasp. From this ānandamaya kośa, the holy Ānanda of Advaita. What is this Ānanda of Advaita? One alone, without a second, is Brahman. That which is not two is one alone. That itself is, for us, the principle of the Ātma. It is one alone. There are no separate Ātmas, as in ‘my Ātma, your Ātma, his Ātma’. These bulbs, the bodies, are different from one another. But the current is just one. One bulb may be dim, another bulb may be bright. The difference lies only in the bulbs, dim and bright; it is not a difference in the current. In the same way, the Ātma is in all. The one Ātma is the inner Ātma of all beings. The Ātma in everyone is one alone. Such oneness is just what the culture of Bhārata has taught. In ancient times they went on showing the oneness that lies within the many. But unfortunately today, in this modern age, they keep dividing the one into the many. That itself is the mistake. They fall prey to sorrows only because they make this mistake.