In plain words
You must give up selfishness and self-interest. All are one, my dear son, be alike to every one. So said Jesus. You must hurt no one. ‘Blessed is he who goes his way without hurting others and without being hurt himself,’ they said. All are children of one mother. The earth on which all live is one. The air that all breathe is one. All will give up their life one day or another. You must recognise this oneness and put away difference. This is just what the young women and men of today must do.
Dhyāna is beyond the senses.
To boast, ‘We are doing village service, we are serving the poor,’ is a great mistake. To serve is your duty. Man is born only for service. To be born for service and then long for leadership is a great mistake. The servant himself is the true leader. So give fitting service to the lowly and the helpless and raise them up. That alone is real sādhana. Japa, dhyāna, yoga and all such things are elementary sādhanas. What, after all, is meditation? You say, ‘We are meditating on God.’ But when you do not know who God really is, how can you meditate on God? Is Rāma God? Is Kṛṣṇa God? Is Jesus God? Is Allah God? All of them are embodiments of God! Many sit with their eyes shut saying they are doing dhyāna, but they do not recognise what dhyāna really is. They think dhyāna is concentration. That is a great mistake. Concentration belongs to the senses. But meditation is beyond the senses. Whatever you do with the feeling of God, that is dhyāna itself! Whatever work you do with Prema, that is dhyāna itself! Without Prema, even if you sit for hours with your eyes shut, it can never be dhyāna. Since Prema itself is God, whatever sādhanas you do without knowing the principle of Prema, they are of no use. A heart without Prema is like a desert. So you must make Prema grow. What kind of Prema? Not worldly love. You must make the Prema of the Ātma grow. You must recognise the truth that the Ātma in all is one. But this level is not so easily within everyone's reach. Step by step, through sādhana, you must strive to reach that level.
Sādhana without control of the senses is meaningless
Can you join a degree course the moment you are born? You must begin from the first class and reach the level of a degree step by step. In the same way, you do have to do these elementary sādhanas! How far? They are needed until you reach the level of nivṛtti. Once you have reached the level of nivṛtti, you must give them up. But without control of the senses, whatever sādhanas you do are of no use. By control of the senses, humanness turns into Godhood. So first of all, control your senses. Vices such as anger and restlessness are not natural to you. Anger is the mark of a dog, restlessness the mark of a monkey. So when anger comes to you, bring to mind again and again, ‘I am not a dog, I am a human being.’ When restlessness rises in your mind, warn yourselves again and again, ‘I am not a monkey, I am a human being.’ Without giving up the marks of a dog, if you want human values, how will you get them?
From faith alone Ānanda arises.
Satya, Dharma, Śānti, Prema and Ahiṃsā: these are the human values. We can compare them with your five life-breaths, prāṇa, apāna, vyāna, udāna and samāna. Man today has lost these ‘five life-breaths’ and passes his time like a living corpse.