In plain words
Keep Prema for God safe within you!
Today everyone follows worldly love. Prema for God alone is true Prema. That Prema will never betray you. Whatever anyone may think, whatever criticism they make, when you pay no heed and keep that ‘divine love’ safe within you, you will make good progress in the future. Your body is like a bag. In it you have put Manas, Buddhi, citta and the rest. The moment life leaves the body, it becomes an empty sack. Then they put it in the fire and burn it up. So, while life remains, offer to God the goods that are in you. Kāma, krodha, lobha, moha, mada and mātsarya bring us nothing but suffering; they do not give Ānanda. How happy you would be if you gave these up! Then Ānanda alone remains in you! If you wish to experience such eternal Ānanda, you must offer everything within you to God. You long for so many things. But does everything you wish for come to you? You must not hurt others in order to fulfil your desires. If you want anything, ask God directly. Have a ‘direct’ relationship with God! If, without asking God ‘direct’, you follow needless ‘indirect’ ways, you will have to suffer sorrow.
Prema alone can make all one
Today, above all, we need ‘unity’. In those days, Bhārata could win independence only because all the people fought in unity. In honour of this, I wrote a song in those days. One day a political leader came along: “Bābū! You write fine poetry, they say. If you write a good song on our heroes, we will print it in the paper,” he said. They arranged a meeting. At that meeting, up on the platform, I laid a rubber doll in a cradle; rocking it, I made up a song like this and sang it: