॥॥ ॥॥
In plain words
A doctor gives bitter quinine medicine to one who has malaria fever. Only when he drinks that bitter medicine is the fever cured. In the same way, whether hardship comes to you or loss, recognise that it is for curing your illness. Every action has a cause. God does no action without a cause. Unable to recognise the relation of cause and effect, man thinks, ‘God is making me suffer.’ God makes no one suffer. The doer is he himself, and the one who reaps is he himself. Man must recognise this truth.
Imitation is the mark of a beast
The desires of young women and men today are going beyond all bounds. The more you cut down the luggage called desires, the more smoothly the journey of life runs. Because of desires beyond bounds, you have to bear great strain, not only in body but in mind too. There should be food to eat. There should be water to drink. There should be cloth to wear. ‘Food begged for, to keep the body; cloth, to keep off the cold.’ Clothes are not for adornment. Young women and men today are crazy about fashionable dress. They watch the films and copy them. Imitation is the mark of a beast. Women above all should keep away from fashions. Wear clothes that cover the body fully. Eat food enough to fill the stomach. No one will object to that. To control the senses, you must curb your desires. Only then will Godhood come to you. Patañjali said, ‘Yogaś cittavṛtti nirodhaḥ.’ To curb the movements of the citta: that alone is real yoga. Man falls prey to diseases just because he lets them loose unchecked. You must become yogīs. Yoga does not come through bhoga. Disease does not come through yoga. Yoga does not mean renouncing all ties and going off to the forest. Yoga means joining. To join your Prema to God: that alone is real yoga.
The principle of Śaraṇāgati
God desires nothing. He never says, ‘My son, do yoga, do dhyāna; only then will I be pleased.’ God longs for you to become people whose hearts are Prema, whose hearts are Śānti, whose hearts are sacrifice and whose hearts are Satya. When you put God's commands into practice, He Himself will give you everything you need at each moment, without your asking.
Do not ask, O mind; knowing that the more you ask, the lower it sinks, and that if you do not ask, the work is quickly done. (Do not ask…) Did He not cherish Śabarī, who never asked? Jaṭāyu, who asked nothing and died for Him: did He not go to him at the last and grant him a blessed end? (Do not ask…)
You need not ask. He Himself sees to everything. When a baby is hungry, it does not ask, ‘Mother! I want milk,’ does it! Śaraṇāgati too is just like that. If you set your heart on desires, saying ‘I want this,’ you will drift far from God. What does a mother say to a child who pesters her with ‘I want that, I want this’? ‘Go and ask the cook; he will give it to you,’ she says. To the infant who cannot ask, she herself goes and gives milk. Asking is the very nature of Ahaṅkāra. Only one who lives a merely worldly life keeps asking, ‘I want that, I want this.’ For the baby who asks for nothing and sleeps without a care, the mother herself sees to all it needs at every hour. In the same way, God Himself takes care of the welfare of one who, with no worries, keeps his thoughts on God.