In plain words
If you lead such an ‘artificial life’, you will go badly astray. You must fill your ‘heart’ with Prema. Whatever you do, you must do it wholeheartedly. But now everything is becoming ‘artificial’; even education is turning ‘artificial’. Read ever so many books, chant ever so many mantras, meditate ever so long: it is all ‘artificial’! ‘Artificial’! This is not good. You close your eyes, claiming that you are meditating. But your mind wanders about as it pleases. What use is that? So first of all you must control your mind.
When you turn the mind towards God, Māyā subsides
As our thoughts are, so our action becomes. So first of all we must keep our thoughts pure. Only then can we do good deeds. Only when we do good deeds do good results come to us. When the mind keeps going off here and there, we must not go after it. The mind must be under our control; we must not be under the mind's control. The mind is like a mad monkey! It leaps about as it pleases. But when you turn it towards God, it stays very quiet, meek and subdued.
When you turn away from the sun, the sun's light falls on your back. Then your ‘shadow’ is bigger than you and falls in front of you. When you turn towards the sun, your shadow falls behind you. You can compare Māyā to your shadow. If you turn your mind towards God, Māyā falls behind you. If instead your mind turns away from God, Māyā brings you under its sway. At noon, when the sun comes over your head, your shadow falls beneath your feet, does it not! In the same way, when you fix your mind steadily on God, Māyā subsides completely. So, if you would conquer Māyā, you must first of all turn your mind towards God.